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The Escape of Hobson and His Companions 



Reproduced from "Harper's Pictorial 
History of the War with Spain." Copy- 
right 1898, 1899, by Harper & Brothers. 



Brave Deeds of 
American Sailors 



By 
ROBERT B. DUNCAN 




PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 






■mi 



Copyright, 191 2, by 

George W. Jacobs & Company 

Published September, igi2 



All rights reserved 
Printed in U. S. A. 



t, CI.A 3^00 40 



Contents 



o 


I. 


With Pitchfork. AND Sword . 

The Story of the Men of Machias 


7 


^ 


II. 


When John Paul Jones Began to Fight 
The Botihomme Richard and the Serapis 


24 




III. 


The Men on the " Mastico " . 
Decatur and the Philadelphia 


58 




IV. 


" Don't Give Up the Ship ! " . 

Captain Lawrence and the Chesapeake 


81 




V. 


The Sick Man of the Lake . 
The Story of Alexander Perry 


107 




VI. 


How the Wind Played Tricks on the 

" Essex " 

The Story of David Porter 


137 




VII. 


The Cheese-box 

The Monitor and the Merrimac 


173 




VIII. 
IX. 


The Man in the Rigging 
Farragut in Mobile Bay 

" Another Stripe or a Coffin " 
Cashing and the Albemarle 


186 
201 




X. 


The Cruise of the Captain's Gig . 
The Heroism of William Halford 


240 


fe 

^ 
> 

^ 


XI. 


The Man Behind the Men 

The Story of Dewey at Manila 


272 


XII. 


" Valiente " 

The Story of Hobson and His Men 


285 









^ 



Illustrations 



The Escape of Hobson and His Companions . . Frontispiece 

The Capture of the Serapis . . . Facing page 54 



Decatur Capturing the Philadelphia 

" Don't Give Up the Ship ! " 

Perry Leaving the Lawrence .... 

Engagement Between the Monitor and the 
Merrimac ..... 

The Shipwrecked Sailors on Ocean Island 

On Board the Olympia, Battle of Manila Bay 



74 
98 

130 

180 
250 
280 



Brave Deeds of American Sailors 

CHAPTER I 
WITH PITCHFORK AND SWORD 

There was great excitement on the water-front of 
Machias, away down on the eastern coast of Maine, 
on Saturday, the ninth of May, 1775. Men and 
boys were running down to the wharf, shouting to 
each other as they ran ; women were scurrying out 
of their kitchens, their aprons thrown over their 
heads, shrilly discussing matters with their neigh- 
bors ; little children left of? their play to stare and 
wonder, 

A vessel had just come into the port from Boston. 
There was nothing unusual about that ; many ves- 
sels came to Machias to load hay that grew on the 
rolling hills about the town, or lumber cut from the 
dense pine forests that bristled for miles behind the 
bay. But this craft brought big news. Something 
had happened in Boston that they all knew would 
change history. There could be no doubt of the 
meaning of the word that the crew from the vessel 
were spreading among the men of Machias, who had 
hurried down to the water to hear. 

Every sailor of the crew was surrounded by his 



8 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

own little knot of listeners, and was going over the 
story from the beginning for the benefit of each be- 
lated arrival. They were telling how the British red- 
coats, who had been stationed for a long time in 
Boston, had fallen foul of the patriots round about 
and had let blood which would surely lead to the 
letting of much more blood before the matter was 
ended. They were telling how the patriots, expect- 
ing trouble with the redcoats, had organized train- 
bands in all the towns about, and militia companies 
of minutemen ; men ready to turn out and fight at 
a minute's notice. How they had been gathering 
together cannon and powder and military stores and 
had put it away in Concord and other places. 

They told how the patriots, expecting that the 
British might attempt to seize the stores, had been 
watching the redcoats closely ; how they had ar- 
ranged signals with lights in the belfry of Old South 
Meeting-house ; how, one night, Paul Revere had 
seen the light hung out, jumped on his horse, and 
run through the country, giving the alarm. How 
the good patriots had come tumbling out of their 
beds in his wake, snatched up their guns, and gath- 
ered for a defense of the stores. How, when the 
British reached Lexington early in the morning, 
after marching most of the night, they had found a 
company of minutemen drawn up on the green to 
receive them. How Major Pitcairn, leading the 
British troops, had cried out : " Disperse, ye vil- 
lains ! Damn ye, why don't ye disperse ! " and had 



WITH PITCHFORK AND SWORD 9 

ordered his men to fire when the patriots stood their 
ground. 

• The news of the attack on the men at Lexington 
had run like a fire through the countryside. The 
patriots had gathered about Concord and met the 
redcoats with a hail of bullets. The redcoats had 
turned back to Boston, unable to destroy most of 
the stores, which had been buried or hidden. They 
had been beset all the way by the farmers and 
townspeople, firing on them from behind walls and 
trees. The redcoats, on the run, with their tongues 
hanging out of their mouths, had been saved from 
destruction or surrender at last only by the timely 
arrival of reinforcements from Boston. All this they 
told the men of Machias, over and over again, 
adding many details to each repetition to freshen the 
story. 

The little town of Machias had not been greatly 
disturbed by British rule. They were far from the 
center of things, and not in any way important. 
Only one thing had they suffered at the hands of 
King George. All the tallest and straightest pines 
in their forests had been set apart for the use of the 
English navy ; no woodman could lay axe to them 
without incurring the royal displeasure and punish- 
ment. Even now there were two British sloops in 
the harbor, under the protection of a British armed 
schooner, the Margaretta, loading lumber to be 
made into barracks for the redcoats in Boston. 

Aside from that, the citizens of Machias had not 



lo BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 



been troubled much ; they had little complaint to 
make for themselves about the oppression of King 
George. But they knew what the men about Boston 
had been through, and their hearts were with them. 
Now, when they learned that their fellows in Massa- 
chusetts had been fired upon, and some of them 
killed, by the red-coated hirelings of the king, they 
raged into zeal for the cause of liberty. They 
would help ; they would do their little best to drive 
the red-coated tyrants from their shores. 

They said so, all of them, many times over as 
they stood about the deck of the vessel from Boston, 
talking with the crew, and casting many darkling 
glances at the two sloops and the Margaretta, the 
armed schooner that had them in her care. They 
hated the flag of Great Britain that swung in the 
breeze of the armed vessel out in the harbor. 

Dennis O'Brien, at the end of a long silence which 
had been filled with a scowling gaze at the detested 
emblem of tyranny, dragged aside one of his com- 
panions. The O'Briens were six stout sons of an 
Irishman; Jerry O'Brien, the tallest and stoutest of 
the six, was a leader in the village in everything 
that required pluck and determination and good 
sense. 

Dennis O'Brien, leading aside his companion, 
whispered something in his excited ear. The two 
went among the others, whispering. The crew, one 
by one, was taken aside and told to say nothing of 
the affair that might reach the ears of the British in 



WITH PITCHFORK AND SWORD ii 

the vessels in the harbor. Then the citizens quietly 

dispersed, going away by twos and threes. 

. That night sixty men stole to a little house in the 

dark woods behind Machias. For a long time the 

sound of their low voices might have been heard, if 

any one had been there to listen. But there was no 

one. 

They would do what they could for the cause of 
liberty. They must do something ; their blood was 
aroused. They would capture the Margaretta ! 
To-morrow would be Sunday. Every Sunday Cap- 
tain Moore, of the Margaretta, came ashore to attend 
service in the tiny church on the hill. Captain 
Moore had heard nothing of the trouble in Boston ; 
there were no telegraphs in those days, and no ex- 
press trains delivering the morning papers through- 
out the land. 

Captain Moore had been at Machias two or three 
weeks now, and was beginning to feel at home there. 
He had found the citizens fairly friendly ; they had 
done nothing more than scold and growl because he 
had come there for their lumber. Their growling 
was nothing ; he had no thought of harm coming to 
him from them. They were subjects of the king 
whose servant he was. What would they do to him ? 

They made up their minds what they would do to 
him that night, in the house in the dark pine woods 
— splendid place for the hatching of a plot ! They 
would capture him and his vessel. They would do 
it in this way. They would divide into two parties. 



12 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

One party would go to the church ; some would go 
inside and some would surround the building, while 
the British officers were at worship. It was not a 
very nice thing to do, to carry war into the church, 
but liberty must be served, and they must do some- 
thing to cool their heated blood. 

Then, while one party held Captain Moore and 
his officers captives, the other party would put out 
to the Margaretta in boats and storm her before the 
crew could guess what it was all about. 

The next day came, as next days will, and brought 
the Englishman ashore to attend service. It was a 
pretty day ; the sun warm and bright over the fields 
and hills and harbor, the leaves bursting from their 
buds, the birds twittering in the branches, the cows 
enjoying the fresh green grass in the meadow. It 
was such a pretty day that Captain Moore, who was 
reminded of Old Engla,nd by the view, took a pew 
near an open window that overlooked the slope of the 
hill on which the church was perched, and the wharf 
and river beyond. 

Seated in the pew and stealing a peep about the 
church now and then to help while away the long hour 
or two of the sermon, Captain Moore fell to wonder- 
ing why so few of the men of the congregation were 
present. He wondered, too, why those few had 
taken their seats close to him, and why they kept 
looking at him from time to time, beneath their eye- 
brows. 

Glancing out of the window presently, he wondered 



WITH PITCHFORK AND SWORD 13 



what all those men were up to who came by twos 
and threes to the wharf ; and why they carried with 
them muskets and great pistols and scythes and 
reaping hooks and pitchforks and axes. 

But he did not wonder long. Something told him 
that everything was not as it should be. He felt it 
in the air. With a sudden shout to his companions, 
he leaped to his feet, rushed to the open window, 
and disappeared through it from the sight of the as- 
tonished congregation, his men after him. 

The minister stopped and stared. The men who 
had been set to watch the captain glanced sheepishly 
at one another. The women screamed a little, and 
giggled. They did not know what it meant. They 
only knew that it was funny to see the captain of a 
British ship leap through an open church window 
right in the middle of the meeting. 

The minister stepped down from the pulpit and 
went to the window where a part of his congregation 
had vanished. The matter required investigation. 
Looking out of the window, he saw the British cap- 
tain, with the other officers at his heels, running as 
fast as their legs would carry them toward the river, 
their coat tails flapping in the wind, their hats in 
their hands. Behind them, in full chase, as tight as 
they could clip it, was an armed company of his flock, 
brandishing all manner of outlandish weapons and 
shouting mightily. Another band was running over 
from the wharf to cut oflE the captain and his staff 
from the river. 



14 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The commotion outside was tremendous. The con- 
spirators, their plans upset, all ran after the English- 
men yelling frantically. The tumult roused an old 
salt who had been enjoying a nap on the deck of the 
Margaretta. He woke up and looked over the rail 
to see what it was all about. What he beheld was 
his worthy captain flying down the hill from the 
church with the whole country at his heels. 

The old salt rubbed his eyes and pinched himself 
solemnly on the cheek twice before he could believe 
that it was not a dream. Convinced at last of the 
reality of what he saw, he ran over to one of the 
swivel guns, loaded it, and took a shot at the pursu- 
ing crowd. 

The shot held the men of Machias where they were. 
They had not counted on that. When a shot fired 
at you with the intention of killing you is not pro- 
vided for beforehand in your plans ; when your mind 
is not made up to it, you are not likely to know 
what to do, and you will probably stop where you 
are to think it over. The men of Machias found it 
so. They were not so much frightened by being 
shot at, as they were surprised, and deprived of the 
power to think beyond the first instinct to keep out of 
the way. 

Relieved of his pursuers, the captain and his officers 
made their way to the water in more seemly haste ; a 
boat came ashore for them, and Captain Moore went 
aboard, fuming, puffing, and astonished. He could 
not make it out, having heard nothing of the recent 



WITH PITCHFORK AND SWORD 15 

event in Boston. As a feeble expression of his 
opinion of the aflfair, and the people of Machias, he 
fired a shot or two over the town from his swivel 
guns, and drew down the river to a safer anchorage. 

Monday morning Denny O'Brien and Joseph 
Wheaton met by chance on the wharf, and fell to 
mourning about the miscarriage of their plans. They 
had come so near to taking the Margaretta that it 
was tantalizing. Their talk was full of " ifs " ; they 
worked themselves up into a state of high excitement 
over it. " We can take her yet," exclaimed Wheaton, 
at last, smiting his thigh with his fist. 

" How ? " asked Denny O'Brien, eagerly. He was 
ready for any adventure, but he did not see a way. 

" There are them sloops," returned Wheaton, point- 
ing to the lumber sloops that the Margaretta had 
brought to Machias. " 'Twould be easy enough 
to take one of them. Then we could get a crew of 
volunteers and go down and take the old Johnny 
Bull." 

Denny's eyes glistened. " That we will, lad," he 
cried, and looked about for a way to make a begin- 
ning. 

At that moment Peter Calbreth and Hoseah Kraft 
came sauntering along. Dennis turned to them. 
A few minutes of animated talk, and the four walked 
over to the sloop, discussing the weather and the con- 
dition of the grass in the meadows. The crew of the 
sloop was busy loading and storing lumber. They 
paid no attention to the loafers on the whar£ 



i6 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 



The four men went aboard and strolled among the 
crew. Before the Englishmen knew what was going 
forward, they were seized in strong, rustic arms and 
carried ashore. The four haymakers were in posses- 
sion of the sloop. 

Being young and full of the joy of living, they 
raised a mighty cheer in honor of their success. 
The town was in an unsettled frame of mind, and the 
cheering brought all the citizens down from their 
shops and fields in a hurry. 

"What's in the wind?" cried Jerry O'Brien, per- 
ceiving his brother and three companions strutting 
up and down the deck of the sloop. 

" We're going down to take the Britisher," re- 
turned Wheaton, and explained the project in all the 
pride of having thought of it. A large crowd of 
men and boys had gathered by this time. 

" My boy, we can do it ! " shouted Jeremiah 
O'Brien, with enthusiasm, smiting his thigh as 
Wheaton had done. 

A great scurrying among the bystanders. They 
flew off in a dozen directions. Presendy they began 
to come running back. Some of them carried mus- 
kets ; one of them staggered under the weight of a 
" wall-piece " — a kind of musket too heavy to be 
fired offhand, but needing a wall for its support. 
Some had pitchforks ; some, axes. Others carried 
powder-horns and bullet pouches. One brought a 
bag of bread, expecting a long cruise. Another, a 
few pieces of pork. Three or four of them rolled a 



WITH PITCHFORK AND SWORD 17 

cask of water aboard the sloop. The astonished 
crew of the sloop sat apart on the wharf and watched 
the proceedings. 

The entire townful of men and boys wanted to go. 
Thirty-five of the strongest were chosen ; there were 
no bravest. They were all brave, for that matter. 
The thirty-five tumbled aboard, hoisted sail, and 
started after the Margaretta before a spanking 
northwest breeze. All they had for weapons were 
twenty muskets, one wall-piece, with three rounds of 
powder and ball for each ; thirteen pitchforks, and 
twelve axes. The enemy had four six-pounders and 
twenty swivel guns. And the British crew outnum- 
bered the men of Machias on board the sloop. 

But they did not think of that as they sailed 
down the river toward the Margaretta. If they had 
thought of it, Jerry O'Brien, whom they had made 
their leader, would have made them forget it. They 
were there to capture the Margaretta, and they 
were going to do it. 

Captain Moore, watching the behavior of his late 
sloop from the quarter-deck of the schooner, was not 
pleased with what he saw. What had got into these 
wild men of Maine, that they made free with his 
sloops and came down to him in hostile array ? If 
he had heard the news from Boston he might have 
known what had got into them. 

Captain Moore was not a coward ; he showed that 
plainly enough later in the day. But now he ran 
away from the haymakers. Perhaps, not knowing 



i8 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

that the redcoats in Boston had already fired on the 
patriots at Lexington, he did not wish to let these 
foolish farmers pick a quarrel with him that might 
lead to a bloody war between brothers. Whatever 
was his reason, he hoisted his anchor and set sail to 
get out of the way. 

And, whatever his reason, he made a mess of 
getting out of the way. The wind was fresh from 
the northwest, and his course was due south, but he 
set his mainsail to with the boom to starboard. Any 
boy would have known better. He had not gone 
far before he had to jibe the mainsail over to the 
port side. It went across with a rush ; the sheet 
got too much slack in it, and the boom brought up 
abruptly against the back-stays. The jerk was too 
sharp for the piece of wood ; it snapped ofif short at 
the point of impact. 

The haymakers in the sloop, seeing the Marga- 
retta get under way while they were at a distance, 
and believing their prey would escape, set up a 
shouting in their rage, and taunted Captain Moore 
with being a coward, saying many things to him 
and about him that it would not have been pleasant 
for him to hear. But when they saw his boom go, 
and the mainsail crumple into a limp and flopping 
mass of canvas, they set up a different cry, sure that 
they would overtake him after all. It never occurred 
to them to think that they needed to do more than 
overtake him in order to make a finish of him and 
his boat. That was the spirit with which they went 



WITH PITCHFORK AND SWORD 19 

into the affair ; and tiiat is a good frame of mind to 
be in when you undertake to do anything in this 
world. 

Captain Moore was a long way ahead when the 
accident happened. Not far from him, lying closer 
inshore, was a merchant schooner. He put in to 
her, crippled as he was, and made no ado about 
robbing her of her boom. She could get another at 
her leisure ; as for himself, he had no leisure just 
then. He had it aboard and slung, and the sail bent 
to it, before his pursuers came up with him. This 
time he made better work of getting under way. 

But as he wore off into the bay at the mouth of 
the river, the following sloop proved to be a better 
sailer. His new boom could not get out of the 
mainsail all the speed there was in it ; it did not fit 
as it should have, and there was no time to adjust it. 

The mad crew of men carrying pitchforks and 
axes, with the Irishman Jerry O'Brien at their head, 
came up little by little as the two stood down the 
bay. " Now, then, Johnny Bull, we'll soon have 
ye ! " cried Jerry O'Brien. He never thought of the 
odds ; of the four six-pounders and the twenty swivel 
guns against their twenty muskets and one wall- 
piece, with three charges of powder and ball for each. 

Neither did the other men of Machias think of 
such details as they thronged along the rail of the 
sloop, eager to get closer to the enemy of liberty and 
the friend of tyranny, as they already had come to 
look upon Captain Moore. Those who had muskets 



20 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

held them ready to fire. Tom Knight, moose hunter 
from the back woods of Maine and a famous dead 
shot, balanced the heavy wall-piece across the gun- 
wale, waiting with glistening eye for the time to 
come when it would be safe to chance a shot. They 
had only three rounds apiece for the muskets ; they 
must make every shot tell. 

Captain Moore, still eager to avoid an encounter, 
cut loose the small boats that he was dragging 
astern. " Aye, aye, cut away your chicks ; 'twill do 
ye no manner of good, man 1 " shouted Dennis 
O'Brien, from the bows of the sloop. 

The distance between the vessels was growing 
less. There was bustle aboard the Margaretta. 
Captain Moore was on her quarter-deck giving 
orders. Men were running to and fro, and hover- 
ing about the swivel guns. 

A spurt of smoke leaped from one of the swivels. 
Before the whistle of the first shot had left the 
air, the entire broadside of the Margaretta leaped 
forth. 

Jerry O'Brien ran his eye quickly along the rail to 
see which of his neighbors and friends might have 
been struck down by the storm of balls that had 
swept across the water. One man in the waist of 
the sloop clapped a hand to his chest, crumpled up, 
shuddered, quivered, and lay still. 

Tom Knight was sighting the wall-piece with 
great care and deliberation. It roared forth. The 
man at the helm of the schooner lurched forward 



WITH PITCHFORK AND SWORD 21 

across the wheel and dropped to the deck, giving 
the wheel a turn as his body fell. 
' The muskets rattled all along the rail of the sloop. 
The rest of the Britishers on the quarter-deck scam- 
pered for safety. There was no one left to set the 
wheel, which had been turned over by the falling 
body of the quartermaster, who had been slain by 
Tom Knight and his wall-piece. With no one to 
steer her, the Margaretta swung a point or two into 
the wind, her sails spilled and flapped idly, and she 
hung in the water, with slackening speed. 

" Now, then ; after 'em, boys!" cried Jerry O'Brien. 

Rushing through the waves under the full press 
of all her canvas, the sloop dashed toward the drift- 
ing schooner, and struck her heavily. At the in- 
stant that they hit together the men in the sloop be- 
gan to clamber aboard the schooner with wild yells, 
brandishing pitchforks and axes, swinging their 
muskets about their heads. 

The jolt of the collision rattled the crew of the 
schooner from their hiding places. They came 
bouncing on deck, armed with cutlasses, pikes, and 
muskets. Captain Moore stormed up and down the 
quarter-deck, brave enough now. He snatched up 
hand-grenades, lighted them, and tossed them over 
into the sloop as fast as he could. 

Once, twice, three times the Americans struggled 
up the sides of the schooner, seeking to carry her by 
boarding ; and once, twice, three times, they were 
beaten back. The sound of heavy blows, the ex- 



22 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

plosion of hand-grenades, the popping of muskets, 
the grunts of the fighters, the curses and cries of the 
hurt, the cheers of all, mingled in a terrific din. Cap- 
tain Moore all the while was fighting like a tiger, 
urging on his men ; and, like a lion, Jerry O'Brien 
was pressing forward at the head of his. 

Some one, drawing apart from the melee, aimed a 
musket at the English captain, where he stood rag- 
ing and fighting magnificently on his quarter-deck. 
The man pulled the trigger ; it was the last shot left. 
The captain's face was twisted in sudden pain and 
horror; he lurched forward, and fell his length on 
the deck of his schooner. 

*' Now, then, lads ! " cried Jerry O'Brien, seeing 
him fall. " The captain is down." 

And he headed a last rush for the decks of the 
schooner. 

Some of the defenders had seen their captain fall, 
and the news ran through them like a breeze through 
the tops of pine trees. For an instant the defense 
slackened. In that instant the Americans poured 
upon the decks of the British craft, and the end had 
come. The men, finding themselves hopeless before 
the stubborn determination of their wild enemy, laid 
down their arms and surrendered. The haymakers 
of Machias had captured H. M. S. Margaretta ! 

But it had cost them dear ; the fight had been fast 
and furious. More than twenty men, a quarter of 
all engaged, were killed and wounded. 

Captain Jeremiah O'Brien found on the captured 



WITH PITCHFORK AND SWORD 23 

vessel muskets, cutlasses, pistols, hand-grenades and 
ammunition. He placed the cannon and weapons 
on the sloop, which was lighter and faster than the 
Margaretta, rechristened her the Machias Liberty, 
and set out in her for Boston, carrying with him for 
crew a goodly band of the men of Machias. He 
was of great service to the Continental troops about 
Boston, capturing British powder craft and furnishing 
powder in that way for the use of the besiegers of 
the town, who needed it badly, and otherwise doing 
much mischief to the British shipping thereabouts. 
But the end of his career is another story. 



CHAPTER II 

WHEN JOHN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 

It was the afternoon of September 23, 1778. 
Four ships of war were beating northward against 
a light wind toward Scarborough Head, on the east- 
ern coast of England ; four smothers of white sails, 
sweeping gracefully over the sparkling sea of the 
summer day. Floating above the stern of each was 
a flag new to the seas, as the ages of flags are reck- 
oned. It carried thirteen broad stripes, alternately 
red and white. In the upper corner, near the staff, 
was a field of blue bearing thirteen stars of white. 
It was the flag of the United States of America, the 
young country that had sprung into life two years 
before, and was now struggling for existence with 
Old England, its mother. 

Although all of the vessels carried guns, which 
frowned across the water from their open ports, the 
practiced eye could have seen that only one of them 
was built for the sole purpose of war. That one, car- 
rying thirty-two guns, had the lines of a frigate ; the 
high sides, the swelling walls, the bulging bows and 
stern. One of the others was clearly a converted 
merchantman ; another was a little craft of only twelve 
guns. The fourth was a great, lumbering hulk, high 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 25 

in the bows, with a poop that was almost a tower. 
If it had not been for the ranges of guns that showed 
through her ports she might have been taken for an 
East Indiaman ; which, indeed, she had been until 
called into service as a man-of-war. 

What were they doing there, those four ships of 
war, flying the American flag under the very nose of 
the enemy ? What mad audacity brought that absurd 
little fleet to the coasts of England ; of England, mis- 
tress of the seas ? The odds against them in those 
waters were dozens to one ; England's navy boasted 
many vessels, any one of which could have swept 
those four from the face of the ocean. What was 
their errand ? What was their hope of escape from 
the risk they ran ? 

The answer is simple. The answer is : John Paul 
Jones 1 The little man in the French coat, heavy 
with gold brocade, and a Scotch cap, pacing the 
quarter-deck of the old East Indiaman that was 
doing present duty as a ship of war ; that little man 
with the dark, quick face, and nervous step ; with 
the ringing voice and flashing eye, was the reason 
for this snapping of the fingers under the nose of 
John Bull. He it was that dared to beard the British 
lion in his den of the sea. 

Three times he had sailed up and down the coasts of 
the right little, tight little island, capturing and burn- 
ing British ships, threatening British towns, throwing 
British subjects into fits of fear. Once, in the Ranger^ 
he had captured the British frigate Drake^ off Ireland. 



26 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Once he had gone into the harbor of Whitehaven, 
spiked the guns of the fort, and set fire to the shipping. 
Another time he had gone ashore to capture an earl, 
and would have done it if the earl had not luckil}^ 
been away from home. Fancy an English earl be- 
ing dragged out of his castle by a handful of upstart 
Americans ! 

The English government called him a " pirate," and 
placed a price upon his head. They swore that if 
they captured him they would hang him. Mothers 
made their babies stop crying by telling them that 
Paul Jones would get them ; young boys frightened 
themselves with him in their play. Never a sail came 
in sight of a headland of England that the people did 
not spread the alarm that Jones was coming, and run 
to shelter. One time a member of the English Parlia- 
ment, seeing his vessel and mistaking it for an Eng- 
lish frigate, sent off to it for powder and ball with 
which to defend his estate, saying that Paul Jones 
was on the coast. Paul Jones had a sense of humor. 
He sent the M. P. a keg of powder, with a message 
that he had no ball of the right size. 

This sense of humor of his took weird slants. He 
was a Scotchman born — ^John Paul was his real name ; 
he added the Jones afterward, for reasons that are 
not known — but he had come into possession of a 
plantation in Virginia left him by a brother, and had 
settled on it. He liked America, and he loved the 
American ideas of liberty. So, when the colonies re- 
volted against George III he had done what he could. 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 27 

He had been a sailor, and naturally took to the sea 
for fighting. 

• At last he got command of the frigate Ranger, 22. 
Then his sense of humor came into play. He 
thought: What a joke it would be to sail over to Eng- 
land and stir up the snug old Britishers in their own 
homes ! It has been said, you know, that an English- 
man's house is his castle. 

He sailed off, full of his joke. To make the joke 
better, he attacked the town where he had been em- 
ployed when a boy as clerk in a store — a sweet re- 
venge, with a good laugh in it. But here is the 
height of his jesting. The old earl whom he at- 
tempted to carry off, and would have, if the earl had 
not been lucky, was the earl under whom Jones's father 
had been gardener when Jones himself was a little boy. 

It is well known that an Enghshman does not 
readily see the fun in an American joke, and they 
saw no fun in those that Jones was playing on them. 
If they had, they would not have called him a pirate, 
and put a price on his head. They would have tried 
just as hard to catch him, of course, but they would 
have laughed over him at the same time, and would 
not have threatened to hang him. 

Of course, the threat to hang him made the joke all 
the more delightful to Paul Jones. Because, before 
they hanged him they must catch him. Also, it let him 
know how much he was teasing them. I fancy Paul 
Jones had many a quiet chuckle in his own cabin over 
it all. 



2S BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The crazy old tub in which he was beating off Scar- 
borough Head on this afternoon in the summer of 
1778 was another relish in the general joke. It added 
zest to sail against England in an old East India- 
man that had been taken off the seas because it was 
worn out and not safe. He had obtained her 
through the French King, Louis XIV, after much 
trouble and dickering. 

It was after his return from that raid on Eng- 
land when he had attacked the town where he 
had worked in a store, and tried to carry off an 
earl, and had captured the frigate Drake, that he 
got the old East Indiaman. He put into France 
when he came away from England. For a long time 
he pulled wires, trying to get another ship. Benja- 
min Franklin, who was in Paris at the time, did what 
he could to help. France, you will remember, was 
assisting the young country over seas in many ways, 
as a blow against her old enemy, England. But it 
was difficult to obtain any satisfaction ; there was too 
much bickering politics in the French capital. 

One day, after he had been trying several months 
to get a ship, Paul Jones was reading " Poor Rich- 
ard's Almanac," written by wise Old Ben Franklin. 
Reading, he came to this maxim : " If you wish to 
have any business done faithfully and expeditiously, 
go and do it yourself. Otherwise, send some one 
else." 

Paul Jones slapped the book together, slammed it 
down on the floor, got up, put on his hat, and started 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 29 

to Paris to see the king. He saw him, and talked to 
him, as man to man. The king was impressed, and in 
due time gave him the old Indiaman — Due de Daras, 
it was named. And an old hulk it was, to be sure. 
Many of its timbers were rotten with age. The 
craft was awkward ; surely it would not be a smart 
sailer. 

Jones had said, in a letter written to the commis- 
sioners who were trying to get him a ship: " I wish 
to have no connection with any ship that does not 
sail fast, for I intend to go in harm's way. You know 
I believe that this is not every one's intention. There- 
fore, buy a frigate that sails fast, and that is suffi- 
ciently large to carry twenty-six or twenty-eight guns, 
not less than twelve-pounders, on one deck. I would 
rather be shot ashore then sent to sea in such things 
as the armed prizes I have described." 

But he had waited so long now that he was hope- 
less of getting anything better than the Daras, so he 
began at once to make her as staunch as he could 
and to fit her out for fighting. She carried twenty- 
eight twelve-pounders on the gun-deck, and eight 
long nines on forecastle and poop. Jones had six 
ports cut in each side in the gun-room, below the gun- 
deck, and had six eighteen-pounders cast, which he 
mounted there. He had six more ports than guns ; 
that was a part of his humor. He had found how 
much could be done by a show of force. 

Not forgetting that he had obtained the ship by 
following the advice he had read in " Poor Richard's 



30 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Almanac," Jones called the craft the Bonhomme Rich- 
ard, which is free French for Poor Richard. 

At last, after more months, Jones was ready to set 
sail. Other vessels were added to his to make a little 
squadron. There was the thirty-two gun frigate 
Alliance, built in America and named in honor of 
the recent alliance between France and the colonies. 
She had been sent to France bearing Lafayette. As 
a further compliment to the French, a Frenchman 
named Landais was put in command of her. Part of 
the crew were French ; part were Englishmen who 
had been made prisoners in various fights ; part were 
Yankee sailors. There had been a mutiny aboard 
on the voyage to Europe, but it had been nipped in 
the bud. We shall hear more of Landais presently. 

Another of the little fleet was the Pallas, twenty- 
two guns, a converted merchant vessel. The third 
was a small twelve-gun sloop, the Vengeance. They 
were each commanded by French naval officers, and 
manned largely by French seamen. This was the 
fleet that was cruising ofT Scarborough Head on the 
afternoon in September. 

They had had trouble from the beginning. When 
they first set out, Jones had a crew made up of men 
from all parts of the world : Americans, Europeans, 
Laskars, negroes ; human driftwood of the sens. 
They had not proceeded far when Landais, in -the 
Alliance, deliberately fouled the Richard, doing so 
much damage that they had to return, and spend two 
or three months repairing. 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 31 

Perhaps there was luck in that, for before they set 
forth a second time a number of Americans arrived 
in the port who had been prisoners in England and 
had been exchanged. They joined the crew of the 
Bonhomme Richard and strengthened it both in num- 
bers and character. 

Now, off Scarborough Head, Jones was walking up 
and down the high poop of the Richard with a quick 
step and a dancing eye, looking for a fight. He had 
had enough of chasing merchantmen ; he wanted 
some one to come along who would try his teeth ; 
the joke was losing savor. 

Samuel Israel said that he would get it, too. 
Samuel was one of the marines on board the Richard. 
He vowed he smelled a fight in the wind. " Fie, fi, 
fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. If he's 
alive he'll soon be dead, for jolly Paul Jones will 
knock off his head," chaunted Israel, lounging in the 
midst of a knot of marines on the main deck of the 
Richard. 

Sam was the wag of the marines ; Jones was a man 
after his own heart. He was a thin whip of a man, 
was Israel, with a face that looked not unlike an ice 
pick, from a side view ; a very long nose, and a slant- 
ing forehead and chin. You would not have picked 
him out for a fighter. But he had his little jokes, just 
as Paul Jones had, and that was one of them. He 
was the most surprising fighter on board, in personal 
encounters. He would give up anything for a bout. 
He loved it; loved it so much that whoever fought 



32 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

with him became thenceforth a fast friend, whether 
he whipped Israel, or, as more frequently happened, 
Israel whipped him. 

A marine, as you know, is a soldier aboard ship. 
When there is no fight it is his business to act as 
policeman ; Israel was a very good policeman. When 
there is a fight, it is the duty of the marines to take 
muskets and pick off the enemy's gunners and 
marines. If there is boarding to be done, or board 
ers to repel, the marines do it. Besides their muskets 
they had in those days cudasses and boarding pikes 
furnished them for such occasions. 

In action the marines were variously stationed 
about the ship. Many of them were in the tops— 
the platforms on the masts— where they could pop 
down on the decks of the enemy. Israel's station 
was on the maintop, which was, in some respects, 
the most important and the most dangerous on board. 
He was a dead shot ; he had been known to shoot a 
gull on the wing with the ship rolling under his 
bandy legs. 

To-day he smelled fight, and was full of joy. He 
glanced up on the lofty poop, where Paul Jones 
tramped up and down. Lieutenant Richard Dale 
was with him. Dale was another fighter ; none better. 
In the beginning of the war between the colonies 
and the mother country he had not been able to de- 
cide which side he wanted to fight on. All he was 
certain of was that he wanted to fight. By chance he 
joined a British privateer. He was wounded in a fight 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 33 

she had with a Yankee, and while he lay recovering 
he had more time to think things over. The result 
ot his thought was that he joined the American cause 
as soon as he was well enough. 

He sailed in the brig Lexington^ which went to the 
West Indies for supplies for the Continental army. 
The brig obtained what she went for, and was return- 
ing, when she fell in with the British frigate Pearl 
and was captured. While the prisoners were being 
transferred from the brig to the frigate, a gale fresh- 
ened up, and the work had to be discontinued. 
Dale was still on the brig. 

That night the wind blew so hard and the sea got 
so rough that the Englishman in charge of the Lex- 
ington paid little heed to the Americans locked up 
below deck, not believing they would attempt any- 
thing with such a sea running, and the brig in dan- 
ger of swamping. But Dale was aboard. If the 
Britisher had known more about Dale he would not 
have felt so secure. Dale led the men in a rush on 
their captors, retook the brig, and sailed her into 
Baltimore. 

The Lexington was captured again later in the 
war. Dale was still on her. He was taken to Eng- 
land and thrown into Mill Prison, in Plymouth. 
There he lay rotting for a time. He tried to escape 
once, but was caught and put away in the dungeon 
for forty days. As soon as he got out of the dun- 
geon, he was put back again for singing rebel songs. 
No doubt now which side he was on. 



34 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Another year, and he made a second escape. 
This time he had better fortune. He made his way 
to France, sought out Paul Jones, who was prepar- 
ing to get away in the Richard^ and offered his serv- 
ices. Jones looked him between the eyes, and made 
him first lieutenant. It is well that he did. Perhaps 
Jones could not have done what he did later in this 
summer day if Dale had not been there to help him. 
And perhaps neither of them, nor both of them, 
would have done what they did if it had not been 
for Samuel Israel, the waggish maintop-man who 
already smelled the blood of an Englishman. You 
can make up your mind to that after you have read 
the story. 

As Captain Jones and Lieutenant Dale paced the 
deck of the poop and Samuel Israel sniffed the 
southerly breeze for the odor he had mentioned, a 
sail peeped out beyond Scarborough Head. A sail 
was cause for excitement those days. It might be 
anything ; it might be sudden death, or sudden 
wealth. As a matter of fact, such fellows as Israel 
did not care overmuch which it was as long as it of- 
fered a chance to spill a little of the blood which 
made perfume for their nostrils. Rather savage 
days, those. 

All hands turned out to have a look at the sail, 
and speculate on it. As they looked, another came 
peeping around the point, and another, and another. 
Before they had ceased to round the point, there 
were forty-two sail in all. 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 35 

Jones and Dale put their heads together. They 
scanned each vessel, as it appeared, with powerful 
glasses. Much depended on the two pairs of glasses. 
The four little American vessels were well to lee- 
ward. They could run away if the fleet was a fleet 
of war vessels. But if it was not a fleet of war ves- 
sels, there was much for them to stay for. They 
might bring down many of the forty birds in that 
flock, and their bones would have much meat on 
them. 

The glass of the commodore, sweeping from ship 
to ship of the large fleet, came to a frequent stop on 
a certain two of them. They towered higher with 
their white canvas ; their sails were trimmer ; they 
lacked the little touch of slackness observable to the 
eye of a naval man in a merchant ship. The two 
were at the rear and on the flanks of the fleet. 

Jones said little to any one. He gave an order, 
and the Richard went on the port tack, standing for 
the shore in front of the fleet. Clearly he was not 
going to run away ; Samuel Israel, sniffing the 
breeze, smacked his lips and wagged his head glee- 
fully. 

The quartermaster broke out signal flags from the 
main truck, telling the others to follow. But the fel- 
low Landais, the Frenchman in command of the Al- 
liance, stood up toward the fleet, followed by the 
Pallas. " If they carry more than fifty guns we must 
run away," said Landais to the captain of the Pallas, 
as he passed within hail. So much he cared for the 



36 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

orders of Jones, who was in command of the squad- 
ron. And the captain of the Vengeance cared no 
more, for he straightway pulled out to sea. 

By this time the Englishmen, who had been doing 
some wondering themselves, came to a decision. 
The larger of the two ships that had been under the 
especial inspection of Commodore Jones broke out 
signals^ and the flock of sail broke up, scurrying in 
a dozen directions. Out of the bunch came sailing 
the two, flying the ensign of England. 

"Yah!" grunted Samuel Israel, joyously, and 
clambered up the ratlines to the maintop, dragging 
his musket after him, as happy as a small boy who 
climbs a tree for a view of a ball game. 

The breeze was light ; the vessels drew together 
very slowly. The Alliance sailed with no pur- 
pose, drawing off and coming back. The Venge- 
ance was far to leeward. The Pallas behaved bet- 
ter, but Captain Jones did not put much faith in any 
French one of them. 

Night was coming more swiftly than the enemy. 
An evening mist of the sea crept out of the water, 
dimming but not hiding the vessels from each other. 
Darkness came, and they were still far apart. 

The high headland of Scarborough was thronged 
with people who had come to look at the spectacle 
of a sea fight. The news had gone abroad that Paul 
Jones was about to close with His Majesty's ships. 
The moment was thrilling. Paul Jones, the pirate, 
the marauder of their homes, in a struggle to the 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 37 

death beneath their very eyes 1 Every small boy in 
the countryside was there ; no mother so brutal as 
to make him go to bed on a night like this. 

Darkness descended. The watchers ashore saw 
four long horizontal rows of square lights slowly 
drawing closer to each other ; the battle lanterns 
gleaming through open ports. Vague in the glow 
from the lights, caught back on the water, they saw 
the shadowy clouds of canvas. They saw, and waited 
breathlessly. 

It had been hours since the fleet was first sighted 
aboard the Richard. The strain was severe. The 
men stood by their guns, snarling at each other, 
nervous, strung to a tension that vibrated with every 
trivial event. They had had too much time to think 
of what was coming ; they had stared death in the 
face too long for their good. Sudden destruction 
must be sudden, or it loses its charm. 

Silence was upon the deep ; silence broken only 
by the plashing of the waves against the timbered 
sides of the ships and the creaking of their cordage 
and the rustle of their sails as the back swing spilled 
the faint breeze from the corners of the canvas. 

Officers paced softly up and down the decks be- 
hind the gunners ; powder monkeys, as they called 
the boys who brought the powder from the maga- 
zines, stood apart, ready to run for more powder 
when the little they had fetched should be used. Up 
in the maintop Samuel Israel hummed something 
about blood and bones. And up on the lofty poop 



38 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

of the Richard a small man in a Paris coat, with a 
Scotch cap thrust on his head, stood motionless, 
peering into the night through a night-glass. Now 
and then he gave an order to the man at the wheel, 
who nodded an "Aye, aye, sir," threw the spokes 
over a hand or two, and made the rudder creak a 
response. 

Slowly, slowly, and more slowly, on the fainting 
breeze, the low, long line of lights that was the 
enemy's port-holes drew closer. They were coming 
on bow to bow, on different tacks. 

They overlapped, bow on bow, a half pistol shot 
apart. A suppressed sigh shivered down the ranks 
behind the guns. The moment had come I In an- 
other minute none knew which one of them might 
be lurched into eternity. 

" What ship is that?" The hoarse cry started the 
quick breath in each man. It was a hail from the 
British frigate. 

" I smell the blood of an Englishman," whispered 
Sam Israel to himself, toying with the lock of his 
musket, to make sure, in the dark, that it was ready 
to set the fragrant blood upon the night air. 

An answer from the high poop where Paul Jones 
stood, Lieutenant Dale at his side and his officers 
about him. "What is that you say?" in the voice 
of Jones. The vessels drew abreast ; he was waiting 
for one more moment to give him a better position. 

"What ship is that? Answer immediately, or I 
shall fire into you." 



II 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 39 

He had his answer. It came in a sheet of flame 
from the open ports of the American ; it was borne to 
his ears in a mighty rush of sound ; the roar of a 
score of guns. 

And in the same moment the British guns burst 
forth with their broadside. The fight was on. 

A tiny pop from the maintop, a drip of sound 
after the deluge of noise that had accompanied the 
exchange of broadsides, told that Israel was feeling 
out for the blood that had so long been in his nostrils. 

A broadside fired by one of those old wooden 
ships used to shake her tremendously. It was like 
hitting a barrel with a mallet ; every timber in her 
jarred and trembled. Also, the noise was terrific. 
But when the Richard fired her first broadside at the 
Englishman, there was more than the usual recoil. 
There was a quicker, sharper thump, and an upward 
thrust. The men on the gun-deck felt it most. And 
there was more noise of explosion down in the gun- 
room where the eighteen-pounders were than the 
three of them in use in the broadside might have 
been expected to make. 

The cause was not far to find. Two great holes 
in the gun-deck, fringed with splintered wood that 
stuck upward at the ends, told the story ; that, and 
the cries in the gun-room below. Two of the three 
eighteen-pounders that Jones had had cast in France 
for his ship had burst at the first fire. Huge masses 
of the barrels and breeches hurtled through the air, 
tearing asunder the men who attended the guns, 



40 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

ripping through bulkheads, chopping down thick 
stanchions, rending the decks above and below. A 
couple of pieces had pierced the gun-deck above. 

In the same moment when the men aboard real- 
ized the disaster that had taken place below, they 
also learned how rotten was the ship to which their 
lives were now entrusted. The balls from the 
enemy's guns tore through the bulwarks and plank- 
ing like a pea from a blower through wet paper. 
There was no life to the Richard^ s wood. It gave 
mushily in front of the striking blows of the shot. 
Traced across her deck were furrows through the 
fighting men, mangled wretches on each side mark- 
ing the course of the balls whose progress nothing 
but soft wood and softer flesh had opposed. 

Gunners slunk from their guns, appalled. None 
knew whether his piece might not be the next to 
hurl itself into a hundred deadly fragments ; none 
knew whether the next ball from that long, low row 
of lights floating at a half pistol shot across the 
water might not tear him limb from limb. 

Paul Jones, seeing the panic about to break, 
leaped from the quarter-deck and ran among them, 
cheering them on, laying hand to a rope here, sight- 
ing a gun there. There was contagion in the man's 
courage. He made death seem a trifle. They 
turned back to their work, and poured in another 
broadside. They threw the heavy guns about like 
toys, ramming home the shot to shouting, and firing 
them to rounds of cheers. 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 41 

The night was filled with the flash of the guns and 
clangor of the broadsides. Sam Israel, up in the 
maintop waiting for the vessels to draw near enough 
to bring his musket into good use, smelled blood 
enough. He looked down upon heaps of men 
strewn over the decks of the Richard. Pools of 
blood drained off into the scuppers and ran slug- 
gishly down the sides, pushing crimson froth ahead 
of them. 

The Richard hauled across the bows of the British 
ship, trying to get in position to rake. The enemy 
was too skilfully handled, and too good a sailer. 
She yawed of^ and took a course that would cross 
the course of the Richard in time. Both keeping on 
as they were, they continued to fire as rapidly as 
they could. 

Jones was not long in seeing that all the advan- 
tage in this kind of fighting lay with the Englishman. 
Of his own battery of three eighteen-pounders on a 
side, not one was left in use. After the explosion of 
the two in the first discharge, no man would work 
the others, and no man could be asked to do so. 
Nor could they have worked them if they would. 
The shot from the ten eighteen-pounders of the 
enemy swept across the decks of the gun-room like a 
draft of wind. In less than half an hour the six ports 
that Jones had had cut in the ship's sides were torn 
into one huge chasm. Stanchions were cut away, 
timbers severed, planking chewed to bits, on both 
sides of the ship, so that the balls entering on the 



42 



BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 



engaged side soon passed clear through and fell into 
the sea beyond, without striking anything. It was 
no place for human life. 

Nor was this the worst. Many of the shot from the 
enemy had taken the Richard on the up roll and 
torn holes below the water line. She was leaking 
badly— "like a basket," said Sam Israel, telling 
about it afterward. And the battery of twelve- 
pounders on the gun-deck, above the room where 
the guns had blown up and which was now swept 
by the enemy's shot, was being silenced, one gun by 
one. Now a missile would swing against the muzzle 
of one of them and throw it from its trunnions or split 
it into fragments. Now a solid shot would strike 
against the carriage, jamming it hopelessly. Now 
a charge of cannister would whisk away the men 
behind the gun. 

In an hour Jones had only three guns with which 
to answer the enemy ; two long nines on the quarter- 
deck, and one twelve-pounder. The long nines he 
directed himself, loading and firing with cannister, 
aiming at the upper deck of the enemy, with now 
and then a double-ended shot sent against their 
mainmast. 

The English vessel was slowly drawing ahead of 
the Richard. If she should get a position ahead and 
rake the length of the vessel with a couple of broad- 
sides, there would be little chance for the Americans. 
They knew the danger, but were not able to avert 
it. 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 43 



Now she was well ahead, and swinging in to cross. 
Commodore Jones was not averse to coming closer ; 
this long range sparring was wearing him down. He 
kept on his course, seeing that the other would not 
have time to cross. The captain of the English ves- 
sel perceived as much presentl}^ and endeavored to 
get clear of the oncoming Richard. But he was too 
late ; the American's bowsprit swept over the quarter- 
deck of the Englishman. 

Now the men had a rest ; those that were left. A 
lull came over the fight ; not a gun on either vessel 
would bear. The captain of the Englishman, per- 
ceiving that the Americans had ceased firing, called 
out. " Have you struck ? " he shouted. 

Then came the answer. You have heard it ; it is 
one of the first things in history, and one of the best. 
" I have not yet begun to fight," said John Paul 
Jones. There is humor at its best ! 

For a moment the two vessels clung to each other 
in a clinch. Then they drifted slowly apart. As 
they parted, the first flash of the moon rose over the 
sea. Time out of mind the moon had looked down 
on fights by land and by sea. It had beheld pri- 
mordial beasts rending each other with tooth and 
claw ; it had seen men clad in skins beating each 
other's brains out with stone bludgeons; it had 
watched the fleets of Greece and of Rome, but it 
is safe to venture that it had never seen a better 
fight than the one which it had arrived in time to 
behold this night. 



44 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

For it was quite true that John Paul Jones had not 
yet begun to fight. When many another man would 
have ceased and hauled down his flag, Jones was 
limping into the conflict with a deadly earnestness 
that would not be denied of its purpose. 

As the two drifted apart he kept up the fire with 
the guns he had left, and sought to close once more. 
His whole object now was to get close and grapple 
with the enemy. He had no guns left on the en- 
gaged side but the two nine-pounders against the 
full batteries of the enemy, which were making pulp 
of his ship. Water was coming in more and more 
swiftly ; the sides of the vessel, deprived of support 
after support by the shot of the enemy, were begin- 
ning to sway under the load of the decks. Perhaps 
if they had been called upon to take up the recoil 
now of full broadsides, the decks would have failed, 
and decks and guns would have gone crashing down 
below. 

Now the moonlight showed the smaller English 
vessel hovering about, seeking to strike a blow, but 
fearing to lest she might hurt her friend as well as the 
enemy, for the two combatants were close together. 
As she hovered, the little Pallas bore down upon 
her and bore in. They closed in a fight on the out- 
skirts of the larger, pounding each other with their 
tiny fists of iron with right good will. 

The two larger vessels were squirming about in 
the sea, trying each to lie across the bows of the 
other. In the twistings and turnings, the jib-boom 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 45 

of the English vessel swung slowly over the quarter- 
deck of the Richard. Jones was across the deck like 
a. cat with a hawser in his hand. He passed a bight 
of the hawser about the jib-boom, and carried the 
rope to the mizzenmast. Stacy, the ship's carpen- 
ter, bent over to help him, knowing well what he 
was about. 

Stacy was nervous and hurried ; the rope fouled. 
Stacy gave vent to a sailor's oath, 

" Don't swear, Mr. Stacy," said Jones, quietly. 
" In another moment we may all be in eternity, but 
let us do our duty." 

The rope was made fast ; the two gladiators were 
bound one to another for a death struggle. 

But not so fast ! The jib-boom snapped under the 
strain, and the Britisher was drifting away. 

He did not get far. The bight was thrown about 
the stump of his jib-boom, and this time it held. 
Tied together the two drifted alongside each other, 
bow to stern. Paul Jones was just beginning to 
fight. 

Do not forget that all this time Samuel Israel was 
in the maintop of the Richard, fingering his musket. 
Now he rose to his knees, and peered over upon the 
decks of the enemy for a sight of an Englishman 
whose blood might need letting. 

Both vessels were enveloped in smoke, but now 
and then through a rift torn in it by the breeze the 
moon shone down on groups of gladiators, standing 
like statues in the light of their battle lanterns. Such 



46 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

glimpses were all the topman needed. His musket 
spat, and spat again, fired point-blank down upon 
the sweating men at the enemy's guns. 

As the two came together, flank to flank, the side 
of the British ship that touched the Richard did not 
have a port open. They had been closed for fear 
the Americans would board through them. Now 
the British tars, trying to crowd them open so they 
might fire, found there was not room for them to 
swing. So they loaded and fired through their own 
ports, blowing them out. 

Now Jones began to fight. Below deck he had 
no chance ; the enemy had cleared him out. His 
men had come up to escape the torrent of iron that 
poured through the vessel from one side to the other. 
They rushed to the forecastle, where they fought 
with muskets and hand-grenades. 

A hand-grenade is a little bomb, about the size of 
a baseball, loaded with powder and filled with scraps. 
It has a fuse, which is lighted before the grenade is 
thrown. It is cast into the midst of the enemy, 
where it goes off like a large and malicious fire- 
cracker. It is a nasty thing to have about your feet, 
or tumbling down on the top of your head, with the 
fuse sizzling. We shall have occasion to speak of 
them again presently. 

You might not have thought that Jones gained 
much by tjnng his vessel to the other. Every shot 
from her was going through his poor old tub of a 
vessel, clear and clean. The enemy's guns out- 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 47 

numbered his many times to one, and the crew was 
not less numerous. But he was satisfied. The other 
ship, for one thing, could no longer lodge balls be- 
neath the water line, being too close to the target. 
And the range of the guns was for the most part 
limited to that part of the Richard where there was 
nothing left to shoot at but a yawning hole. 

Fierce as the fight had been for two hours, it now 
sprang into a savage intensity that is not to be be- 
lieved. The men on the two ships were so close 
together that when they wished to use their rammers 
to thrust the charges down the throats of the muzzle- 
loading cannon, they had to poke the other end of 
the ramrods through the open ports of the enemy. 

"Fair play, there, you cursed Yankee ! " cried one 
British tar, when an American sailor grasped the 
end of the rammer and would not permit him to use 
it. 

" Look out for your eye there, Johnny Bull," 
shouted another American who was ramming a gun, 
thrusting the little end of the rammer into the face 
of an Englishman. It was a race ; the guns were 
jowl to jowl. The first one that fired would certainly 
destroy the other. 

The English were more spry. Their gun was 
discharged first, and the American gun was knocked 
from its trunnions. It was the last of the twelve- 
pounders on the gun-deck. 

Jones, firing with his own hands the two nine- 
pounders on the engaged side of his ship, saw 



48 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

another on the off side that was still intact. He 
called for assistance, and, with great labor, dragged 
it across. He loaded it with grape and cannister, 
and fired. The objects in his fire were two. One 
was to clear the upper deck of the enemy, so that he 
might board, and the other was to cut down the 
Britisher's mainmast. To this end he loaded one of 
the nine-pounders with double-headed shot, and con- 
tinually fired it directly against the spar. 

As he was so engaged, the ship surgeon came to 
him, and advised him to surrender. " The ship is 
sinking," he said. The carpenter had already re- 
ported five feet in the hold. " The water is gaining 
on the cockpit. I am forced to wade around in it 
while attending the wounded." 

" What ! " cried Jones. " Would you have me 
strike to a drop of water ? " And he went on firing 
his long nines, leaving the surgeon to return to his 
wounded in the floating sick bay. 

Smoke was pouring out of the hatches and the 
ports. The ship was afire in a dozen places, set by 
the wads from the British guns. Some of the sailors 
turned their hands to putting out the fires. 

A man came rushing to the quarter-deck. 
" Quarter, for God's sake, quarter ! " he cried. " We 
are sinking." He ran to the flagstaff and clutched 
at the halliards to haul down the flag. 

The eyes of Paul Jones flashed fire. Lifting an 
empty pistol, he hurled it at the man's head. The 
heavy whirling weapon struck him ; he fell to the 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 49 

deck with a heavy groan, his skull fractured. John 
Paul Jones was just beginning to fight. 
• "Do you call for quarter?" asked the English 
captain, who had heard the cry. 

" Never ! " answered Paul Jones, calmly. 

" Then I'll give you none." 

The powder was no longer coming up ; the powder 
monkeys were not to be seen. " Mr. Dale, go below 
and see why the powder has stopped," said Jones. 
Lieutenant Dale stepped olT to obey the order. 
Much depended on his going at that moment ; more 
than either of them guessed. 

The situation had become unique. The battle 
was in two layers. Not a man was left fighting 
below decks in the American ship ; not a man, but 
the captain, was left above decks on the British. 
The cannon of the Englishmen were sweeping the 
insides out of the Richard ; the sailors and ma- 
rines on the forecastle and in the tops, with their 
grenades and muskets, had driven the enemy 
from her upper decks. And so the battle hung sus- 
pended. 

Now two things transpired that came near chang- 
ing the balance. When Lieutenant Dale reached 
the lower deck he found that a quartermaster, believ- 
ing that the Richard was surely sinking, had set free 
two hundred Englishmen who were confined below 
as prisoners of war. These Englishmen were run- 
ning free. It was nothing but luck that brought 
Dale down there when he went, but it was more 



50 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

than luck that led him to do what he did. It was 
cool courage and intelligence. 

" For your lives," he cried, " to the pumps. 
Quick about it. The Serapis is sinking. The 
Serapis is sinking. We must keep afloat, or we 
shall all be drowned 1 " He had seen the name of 
the enemy, in the light of flashing guns, painted on 
her stern. 

Hidden from any view of what was going on, and 
unable to learn the true state of affairs, the released 
prisoners set to work on the pumps and at extin- 
guishing the fires that were springing up here and 
there on the Richard. Dale's presence of mind 
accomplished two things. It occupied the attention 
of the prisoners, who might easily have overrun 
and captured the ship from the American crew, and 
it kept the old trap afloat without the aid of the 
American sailors, who were needed in the fight. He 
had turned threatened disaster to advantage. 

The other thing that happened had to do with the 
Frenchman, Landais, who was in command of the 
Alliance. He had borne off at the beginning of the 
fight, but now he came swooping back in the light 
of the moon, and ranged across the bow and stern 
of the two grappling ships. Just as he was in line 
with them, he let fly a broadside ; not at the Eng- 
lishman, but at the American. Charges of grape 
whistled across the water and churned through the 
mass of men on the forecastle of the Richard. 

Then for the first time Jones thought the end had 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 51 

come, believing that the Alliance had fallen into the 
hands of the enemy, or that it was another ship of 
the enemy that had come up. 

Another broadside and another came from the 
Frenchman into the crippled Richard. The Ameri- 
cans cried out, and set signals to show who they were, 
to no effect. Jones was ready to strike, when the 
ship hauled off through the moonlight, and was 
seen no more. She had done much damage ; many 
men had fallen before her guns who already had 
enough to do to fight the English. It was a wicked, 
a dastardly thing to do. It has been told that 
Landais was insane. Perhaps he was. Perhaps he 
merely wanted to bring about the surrender of the 
Richard so that he could have the honor of retaking 
her and capturing the Englishman. 

You must not forget that all this time our friend 
Samuel Israel was in the maintop of the Richard ; 
and you must not forget that a hand-grenade is a 
small bomb that is lighted and thrown into the midst 
of an enemy. Neither must you forget that I have 
said that if it had not been for Samuel Israel, per- 
haps John Paul Jones would not have won the won- 
derful sea fight off Scarborough Head, under the 
nose of all England. See how true it is. 

The two vessels being locked together by the rope 
that had been passed about the jib-boom of the 
English ship and the mizzenmast of the American, 
the yards of each overhung the other. And the 
fight having became a fight in layers, so that the 



52 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Englishmen were all below while the Americans 
were all above, there was no one on the deck of the 
Serapis to interfere with what Israel now set out to do. 

The first thing he did was to get a slush-bucket 
full of hand-grenades, and a lighted match. He 
slung the bucket with a lashing over his shoulder, 
and took the stem of the match between his teeth. 
The next thing he did was to climb the main rigging 
again — he had come down on deck for the grenades, 
— and start out along the main boom that stretched 
over the deck of the English ship. With his feet in 
the foot rope slung underneath the yard, and his 
fingers on the jack-stay, which runs along the top, 
and to which the sails are bent, he crept farther and 
farther into the air. 

Now he was over the Richard's gunwale. Now 
he was over the strip of water that was between the 
two. Now he was over the gunwale of the English 
ship. Now he was over her decks. Now he was at 
the end of the yard ; on the yard-arm. Now his 
body lay along the yard-arm, reaching out beyond 
the last tip of spar. His legs were wound around 
the yard ; his elbows hugged it. No one saw him, 
excepting Captain Jones, Jones saw everything 
that moonlight night — everything. 

Samuel Israel, asprawl at the tip of the main 
yard, lighted a hand-grenade and tossed it down. 
He watched to see where it went. It struck on the 
planking, hobbled along, sputtered, and went off in 
the solitude of the deserted deck, doing no harm. 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 53 

He had not thrown it far enough. His elbows 
were not free ; he had to cHng on to the yard with 
them and his legs. 

He lighted another, snapped it across with his 
wrist, and watched. It struck the combing of the 
main hatch, which was open, bounced, and went in. 

" I smell the blood of an Englishman ! " chuckled 
Israel. 

He tossed another, and another ; a dozen. 

Just after the last one disappeared into the main 
hatch there was a tremendous flash from between 
decks of the Englishman, and a mighty puffing roar. 

That was what won the fight for John Paul Jones. 
Not that alone, but that was the beginning of the 
end. Of course, no one but Jones would have got 
that far in the fight ; but, having got that far, even 
Jones himself might not have got farther if Samuel 
Israel had not dropped hand-grenades down the 
main hatch of the English ship. 

He was on a ship rapidly sinking. His guns were 
all out of commission excepting three tiny nine- 
pounders. His men were tired and disheartened ; 
they had fought for four hours and a half now and 
had been whipped for four hours and twenty-nine 
minutes. They knew it, if Jones did not. His sick 
bay was full of the maimed and mangled ; there was 
nothing left to him but his obstinacy. 

Then Israel threw the bomb. 

This is what had happened inside the British ship 
to turn the tide of war. The English powder 



54 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

monkeys, bringing up powder faster than it was 
needed, had stacked it in the bags in long rows and 
piles behind the guns, handy for the gunners. The 
grenade had fallen among this powder, and it had 
exploded. More than twenty men were blown to 
bits. Others were horribly burned. Some were 
stripped of their clothing ; nothing was left but their 
neck- and wrist-bands. 

At about the same time the mainmast of the 
Serapis, which had been gnawed at for hours by the 
little long nines aimed by Jones himself, fell by the 
board, bringing down the mizzentopmast. 

What should the captain of the British ship do 
now ? His upper decks were cleared of men ; many 
of his guns had been silenced ; the enemy, whom he 
had whipped for four solid hours, was still fighting 
with a fury that did not diminish. He was grappled 
to the roaring hell of destruction ; he could not clear 
himself of the clinch that held him. Curses, shrieks, 
prayers came to his ears from the lower decks of his 
vessel, where the wounded men waited their turn to 
go under the hands of the surgeons. 

He stood on the quarter-deck of his ship, a picture 
of chagrin and despair. Never had man fought 
more bravely and stubbornly ; never had man earned 
victory more fully, or had it more nearly in his grasp. 
But victory seemed to be but a state of mind, "and 
the American was not of a mind that he had been 
defeated. Even now his French coat and Scotch 
cap, jammed like a gun-wad on the top of his head, 




The Capture of the Serapis 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 55 

appeared at the rail at the head of a boarding 

party. 

* As the first foot of the Americans struck the deck 

planking, the Englishman reached the halliards and 

with his own hands pulled down the flag. 

John Paul Jones, seeing the flag flutter down, 
breathed a short sigh of relief, and his voice rang 
along his decks. " Cease firing !" he said. 

Observe again what a strong right hand he had 
in Lieutenant Richard Dale. Dale went aboard as 
first lieutenant of the conquering ship, to take the 
possession of the conquered. He found the captain 
leaning against the quarter-rail, his head in his 
hands. What miracle had spared him through the 
hail of lead that had swept his decks of all but him 
cannot be guessed. Nine men had been shot from 
his side at the wheel by musket balls ; their English 
blood let by the men in the tops of the Richard. 
Death was all around him, but he had come through 
it for the final humiliation. 

Dale approached him. ** I have the honor, sir," 
said he, " to be the first lieutenant of the ship along- 
side, which is the American Continental ship Bon- 
homme Richard, under command of Commodore 
Paul Jones. What ship is this?" 

" His Britannic Majesty's late ship, the Serapis, 
sir, and I am Captain Pearson," was the response. 

" Pardon me, sir," said the young American, re- 
membering his manners, " in the haste of the mo- 
ment I forgot to inform you that my name is 



56 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Richard Dale, and I must request you to pass on 
board the ship alongside." 

The first lieutenant of the Serapis, coming up from 
below, stood beside them. Seeing the American 
officer, he asked if the enemy had struck. 

" No, sir, I have struck," replied Pearson. 

" I will go below and tell the men to cease firing," 
said the lieutenant, making a move to do so. " We 
have got three guns in commission still." 

Dale was too wise for him. He was not to be 
caught napping. For five hours he had been strain- 
ing every fibre of body and brain in the most ex- 
hausting possible work, but his thoughts were as 
quick as in the beginning. It is that quality that 
makes men great. He feared that the lieutenant, 
if he went below, would fire one last broadside and 
change the result of the fight when victory was in the 
grasp of the Americans. " Pardon me, sir," he said, 
stopping the Englishman, " but I must ask you to 
come aboard the ship alongside." And he sent one 
of his own men below to call off the Englishmen. 

It was over. The day had been won. The most 
astonishing fight in naval history had been brought 
to a close. Victory had rested with him who for 
more than five hours persisted in denying, against 
every evidence and all the facts, that he was whipped. 
Jones had won by sheer and audacious strength of 
will. 

The Botihomnie Richard was found to be surely 
sinking. There was no chance of saving her, al- 



WHEN PAUL JONES BEGAN TO FIGHT 57 

though the crew fought as vaHantly to keep her afloat 
as they had fought before to destroy the Serapis. 
The prisoners and the wounded were brought aboard 
the captured frigate, and the next daiy the Bo?ihomme 
Richard settled beneath the waves to her last rest, 
bearing with her the bodies of those who had died 
in her defense, and with the American flag flying 
from her ensign-gaff. A final, fitting honor for them 
all! 

Samuel Israel, marine and maintopman on the 
late American Continental ship Bonhomme Richard, 
standing on the forecastle-head of His Britannic 
Majesty's late ship Serapis as she lumbered her way 
under jury masts to the Dutch port of Texel, chaunted 
a tune under his breath. 

" Fie, fi, fo, fum, 
1 smell the blood of an Englishman ; 
He was alive but we knocked him dead 
And Davy Jones has tucked him in bed." 

Those were the words he chaunted, swinging 
across the British waters. 



CHAPTER III 

THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 

It was nine o'clock on the evening of February 
1 6, 1804. A small ketch was creeping into the har- 
bor of Tripoli, on the Barbary Coast of Africa. Her 
large, loose sails pufEed with the breeze that blew 
fresh from the Mediterranean ; the water bubbled 
about her fore foot and gurgled lazily underneath 
her keel. A half dozen sailors, in Maltese dress, 
idled about her decks, gazing at the lights of the dis- 
tant town, talking quietly among themselves. The 
helmsman glanced from the sea to the stars and the 
hghts, and back again to the stars, and the sea. 

It was not strange that such a craft should be 
making the harbor of Tripoli at nine o'clock on the 
evening of February 16, 1804. She was one of a 
type of merchant vessels common in those waters ; 
there were many like her plying up and down the 
Barbary Coast. She might have been from Italy 
with olive oil ; she might have been from Syracuse 
with lemons ; she might have been from Greece, or 
Asia Minor. Or she might have been on her way to 
load fruit for the Sultan of Turkey, or to bring him 
slaves. 

But she was on none of these errands. She had 



THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 59 

no wares for the merchants of Tripoli ; no lading for 
the caravans that went crawling from the coast into 
the heart of the mighty Desert of Sahara. The half 
dozen sailors in Maltese dress were not men of 
Malta. The dim light from the starry sky revealed 
the clean-cut faces and strong jaws of Americans ; 
the tongue in which they spoke softly as they 
stood about the decks was the English tongue. And 
lurking everywhere in the shadows of the gunwales, 
behind masts and barrels, indistinct in the darkness, 
were the forms of crouching men. They were her 
cargo. 

Two of the disguised sailors stood at the bow of 
the ketch, gazing forward at the lights of Tripoli and 
the harbor in front of the town. One of them had 
a pair of marine glasses at his eyes. " Can you 
make her out yet?" asked the other, presently. 

A nod and a quiet " Yes," was the answer. 

" Which one is she?" continued the first speaker. 

The other handed him the glasses. " The largest 
of them all," he said. "She lies in the midst of the 
gunboats, close under the batteries on the castle 
wall." 

For a space there was silence. " A tough place 
for us to get into, too, I should say," observed the 
first speaker, at last, taking the glasses from his 
eyes. " Steve," he went on, and there was a ring of 
exultation in his tone, " Steve, we're making history 
to-night ! " 

A shrug of the shoulders was the only reply. 



6o BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

From the shadow of the bulwarks came a clang- 
ing, metallic noise, like the sound of a scabbard strik- 
ing against the planking, The one who had first 
been looking through the marine glasses turned 
sharply about. " Silence there ! " he commanded, 
in a firm note of authority. 

A whisper came back : " Aye, aye, sir." 

The man left his companion gazing over side and 
passed aft toward the pilot. As he went, there was 
a stirring among the shadowy forms under the bul- 
warks and behind the masts. " Another hour, men," 
said the man, cheerily. " Stand by." 

A dozen " Aye, ayes," and he went on to take a 
station beside the pilot, a lank Maltese with villain- 
ous mustaches whisking in the breeze. 

" Signor," murmured the pilot, " I very much 
fraid we lose the wind, signor. See, it dies away." 

" We'll have wind enough," replied the American, 
with a voice of assurance. 

"And the moon," went on the pilot, glancing over 
his shoulder to where the east was streaked with a 
creamy flush. "It is rising. We shall be seen. I 
am not ready to die. It is better that we " 

" Never mind the moon, Catalano," interrupted 
the other, sternly. " You bring us into the harbor, 
and do as I say, and you won't die." 

" It is a wild thing that you do, signor, but one 
can die only once," returned the pilot, twisting his 
face into an effort at a grin. 

The other said nothing more, but walked to the 



THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 6i 

taffrail and looked out across the harbor into which 
they were entering. To the southward, mysterious 
under the half light of the spangled night, the coast 
of Africa loomed gray and dim in the distance. Be- 
yond the land loom, far off, the first peaks of the 
desert mountains blurred out of sight among the 
stars. Ahead of the ketch, at the head of the bay, 
the white walls and Moorish minarets, the mosques 
and castles, the ancient batteries of Tripoli rose 
ghost-like from the hills that stretched their toes into 
the water. A thousand lazy lights blinked from the 
town and the ships that rode at anchor on the heav- 
ing pulse of the harbor. From the last hill a fringe 
of low island and rocks reached through the sea to 
the eastward like a jaw full of broken teeth and 
munched the rushing waters of the Mediterranean 
into froth, leaving the harbor quiet behind them. 

To the north, league on league, the tumbling 
waters of the Mediterranean were sprinkled with 
whitecaps by the fresh breeze that came spinning 
out of the deep. In all the wild waste of waters 
there was no sign of man except the tall, trim 
sails of a brig that fluttered across the swirling gray 
waves. And over land and sea was the starry peace, 
the quiet calm of African night. In all the picture 
there was no hint of war. 

But there was war there ; a most astonishing war. 
The United States, the infant of the west, still 
struggling through its first tottering steps, had taken 
arms against the ancient nation of Tripoli ; a 



62 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

nation that the powers of Europe, even England 
itself, had not seen fit to quarrel with. 

The northern coast of Africa was called the Bar- 
bary Coast. Morocco, Tunis, Algeria, and Tripoli 
were the principal powers of the coast. They were 
inhabited by a mixed race of Moors, Turks, and 
Arabs ; a wild, fierce people whose creed it was to 
prey upon Christians. Among them all piracy was 
a trade, encouraged and controlled by the several 
governments. 

The licensed pirates of the Barbary Coast were 
called Corsairs. They captured and plundered the 
ships of Christian nations, and held the ships' crews 
for ransom. The Christian nations permitted them 
to do it, and sent large sums of money to free im- 
prisoned sailors. Some of them bribed the Barbary 
powers with annual tribute, to let their ships 
alone. 

The United States, being young and weak, suf- 
fered much from the Corsairs. American ships were 
robbed ; American seamen locked up in Barbary 
dungeons to await ransom. Our country sent money 
and presents to all the Barbary powers, year after 
year. We built and fitted out ships for them. We 
ran their errands to and from the Sultan of Turkey, 
to whom they all paid tribute. But the more we 
yielded, the more they demanded. 

Tripoli was the worst offender of them all. The 
time came at last when we could stand it no longer, 
and we went to war. 



THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 63 

We sent a fleet to the Mediterranean, took some 
of their ships, and blockaded their towns. We were 
getting the best of it, when on a day the frigate Phil- 
adelphia, commanded by Captain Bainbridge, chas- 
ing a vessel into the harbor of Tripoli, went on one 
of the sunken rocks in the jaw full of teeth that ran 
into the sea, forming one side of the harbor. 

The Tripolitans at once put out to attack her in 
her helpless position. Captain Bainbridge made a 
valiant defense, but there was no hope. The frigate 
tipped over until her guns would not train on the 
enemy, and she could not be got off. He surren- 
dered at last, after he had bored holes in the 
bottom of the frigate and blocked the pumps, so 
the enemy could not make use of her. But they 
succeeded in stopping up the holes, fixing the 
pumps, and pulling her off the rock into deep 
water. She was towed into the harbor, and anchored 
under the guns of the castle batteries. 

The loss of the Philadelphia was a heavy blow. 
She was a strong fighting ship, and we had none to 
spare. When she was pulled up under the guns of 
the castle and anchored there, she strengthened the 
defenses of the town. Also, it hurt the pride of the 
American sailors to have one of their best ships in the 
hands of the Moslems. But no one could think of 
anything that could be done to remedy the matter. 

One day Captain Bainbridge, a prisoner in Tripoli, 
wrote a letter to Commodore Preble, who com- 
manded the American fleet, and managed to have it 



64 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

carried to him. The letter was written with the juice 
of a lemon, which left no mark. It looked like a 
piece of blank paper. If the Tripolitans had found 
it, they would have made nothing of it. But Com- 
modore Preble held it up to the fire when he received 
it, and the heat brought out the trace of the lemon 
juice. 

The letter suggested that a picked crew of Amer- 
icans might steal into the harbor of Tripoli by night, 
in a native vessel, make their way to the Philadel- 
phia without being suspected, and either cut her 
out and sail away with her, or burn her where she 
lay. 

Foolhardy as the plan seemed, there was not an 
American in the fleet who would not have been glad 
to be one of the crew if there had been a native ves- 
sel that they could use. They could not go in one 
of their own. They would be known as enemies, 
and blown out of the water by the guns of the Tri- 
politans long before they could reach the side of the 
frigate. 

So the affair was in no better state until a day 
in December, when the schooner Enterprise, com- 
manded by Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, captured a 
Tripolitan ketch, the Mastico by name. It was just 
what they needed. They could fill her with men, 
and material that would burn easily, sail into the 
harbor without arousing suspicion, get alongside 
the Philadelphia, capture her, set her afire, and get 
away before the Tripolitans could know what was 



THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 65 

happening. At least, there was a chance that they 
might be able to do all this with the Mastico. 

' Commodore Preble decided at once to try it. 
When it became known in the American fleet what 
was going to be done, volunteers clamored from all 
sides to be permitted to go with the expedition. 
Many more offered than could be taken, for the 
Mastico was small. 

Because he had been the one to capture the 
Mastico from the enemy, Lieutenant Decatur was 
given command of the attempt, and the crew of the 
Enterprise was favored. They all wanted to go, but 
Lieutenant Decatur chose sixty-two men from among 
them, and made his preparations. Tar barrels, 
oakum soaked in turpentine, quantities of pitch, were 
gathered together and stored on the ketch. Provi- 
sions and water were put aboard, and she was fitted 
out with guns, ammunition, cutlasses and boarding- 
pikes. Six officers from the Constitution were per- 
mitted to accompany them. 

On the ninth of February the Mastico set out from 
Syracuse, accompanied by the brig Siren, which was 
to bring them off after they had burned the Phila- 
delphia and escaped — if they should escape. It was 
night when they arrived off Tripoli. The weather, 
which had been favorable, changed suddenly, and a 
strong gale sprang up. They had with them a 
Maltese pilot, Salvatore Catalano. He told them 
they would not be able to enter the harbor with such 
a sea running, but the Americans were not willing tc 



66 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

give up the attempt. Lieutenant Morris and the pilot 
took some of the sailors in a small boat and went to 
explore the harbor entrance. 

There were two passages into the bay ; one at the 
extremity of the chain of rocks and islands, called the 
Eastern Passage, and another between two islands 
nearer the town, called the Northern Passage. The 
Mastico was then near the Northern Passage. Mid- 
shipman Morris soon found that Catalano was right ; 
no craft could cross in such a sea. He returned to 
the ketch, and so reported. 

The two ships hove to near the entrance, hoping 
the wind would die down. Instead, it increased in 
fury, driving the Americans to sea. The next day, 
and the next, and so for six days, it blew. The men 
in the Mastico had a hard time of it. The ketch was 
too small for such a large company. There were no 
accommodations on her. Lieutenant Decatur and 
three lieutenants and the surgeon occupied the little 
cabin. Six midshipmen and the pilot slept on some 
planks laid on top of water casks in the hold. They 
could not sit upright without knocking their heads on 
the deck above them. The sailors had only the casks 
to sleep on. To make things worse, their provisions 
ran short, and their salt meat spoiled. They all lived 
on a short allowance of bread and water. 

But they were not to be discouraged by hardships. 
As soon as the weather moderated they made their 
course for Tripoli again. They reached the coast on 
the night of the fifteenth, but found that they had 



THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 67 

gone too far to the eastward, and were obliged to 
retire, lest they be discovered by the enemy on the fol- 
lowing day. 

On the afternoon of the sixteenth they started a 
third time for TripoH, reaching the coast after night- 
fall, five miles to the eastward of the town. They laid 
their course at once for the Eastern entrance. Find- 
ing that they would arrive too early, Lieutenant 
Decatur put over buckets and other drags to retard 
the progress of the ketch, and so they sailed until 
they came to the harbor entrance, where they bade 
farewell to their friends on the Siren, and passed in. 

Their plans were well laid. They would steal up 
to the Philadelphia, pretending to be a coasting 
merchant ship. As soon as they were alongside, 
they would board. First of all, the entire company 
would clear the spar-deck of the frigate, and then the 
gun-deck. That done, the company was to divide. 
Lieutenant Decatur, with Midshipmen Izard and 
Rowe with fifteen men, would stand guard on the spar- 
deck. Lieutenant Lawrence, with Midshipmen Laws 
and Macdonough and ten men, would fire the berth- 
deck and the forward storeroom ; Midshipmen Joseph 
Bainbridge and John Davis with ten men would fire 
the ward-room and steerage ; and Midshipman Morris 
with eight men the cockpit and after storeroom. 
Midshipman Thorne, with the gunner and surgeon 
and thirteen men, were to remain on the ketch, while 
Midshipman Anderson was to man the cutter, pick 
up all small boats that came out, and prevent as 



68 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

many as possible of the Philadelphia! s crew from 
getting ashore and spreading the alarm. " Philadel- 
phia " was the watchword. Strict orders were given 
against the use of firearms except in cases of the 
greatest need ; the thing must be done quietly, if it 
were to be done at all. 

And now they were launched on the daring under- 
taking. The ketch that was creeping through the 
Eastern Passage, beyond the last sunken rock, on the 
night of February sixteenth, was the ketch Mastico. 
The sailors in Maltese dress, speaking the English 
tongue, were officers of the American fleet ; the dark 
shadows that massed behind gunwale and mast, out of 
sight, were the sixty-two stout-hearted men of the 
schooner Enterprise^ eager to dare death and be re- 
venged on the dusky Turk. 

They had known the risk they were running before 
they started. Now, as they sailed into the harbor, 
and gazed ahead at the lights of the town and the 
ships at anchor, it did not seem that they had a 
chance to get away again ; they could scarcely hope 
ever to leave that placid bay. On one side was the 
fringe of broken teeth munching the waters of the Med- 
iterranean. On the other a Moorish battery bristling 
with guns, like another jaw with sharp teeth, ready 
to close upon them bitingly. Deep in the crotch of 
the two jaws, surrounded by the ships of war of the 
enemy, her own cannon double shotted and her decks 
swarming with Tripolitans, was the frigate, the prey 
they had come to destroy. Close behind her were 



THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 69 

the frowning batteries of the city walls and the 
Bashaw's castle. As soon as they should touch her, 
the trap would be sprung ; the jaw that was the bat- 
teries would close down to crunch them against the 
jaw that was the chain of islands and rocks. A hand- 
ful against thousands they were ; a few against fate. 
But their stout hearts never failed them. Not one of 
them all would have changed places with those who 
had been left safe in the harbor of Syracuse with the 
American fleet, or who now tumbled about in the 
Siren, outside the harbor. 

Least of all would Stephen Decatur have given up 
what he was about to do. He it was who had been 
looking through the marine glasses when the ketch 
entered the Eastern Passage ; he it was who had 
warned the hidden men to silence ; who had quieted 
the fears of Catalano, the Maltese pilot. Now he 
walked the decks, slowly, calmly, serene, glad. 

The moon rose higher, filling the bay with a soft, 
silvery light. They could not hope to remain long 
undiscovered. Already they must have been seen 
ashore, and aboard the frigate. They must depend 
entirely upon their disguise. A low order passed 
along the decks ; the men crouched closer in their 
hiding-places. Only the half dozen in Maltese dress, 
and Catalano, the pilot, remained visible. 

The ketch rolled lazily, scarcely heeling before the 
breeze that was growing fainter and fainter. The 
lights of the city settled into steady gleams as they 
drew nearer. 



70 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Ten o'clock. The ketch was within hailing dis- 
tance of the frigate. Lieutenant Decatur stood by 
the side of Catalano, the pilot. " Head her up for 
the fore chains," he directed. They must get 
out of range of the ship's broadside. One blast from 
those double-shotted guns would send them all to 
eternity. 

" Aye, aye, signer," Catalano replied, and the 
ketch swung away. 

The forms of men appeared along the frigate's 
rail. Others came, to stare idly at the stranger, 
drifting into haven. They spoke among themselves, 
discussing her. 

A hail from the frigate. " What ship is that?" in 
the jargon of those parts ; half Italian, half Moorish. 

The men lurking in the shadows of the ketch's 
gunwales and masts tightened their grips on cutlass 
scabbard and boarding-pike. They could see only 
the face of their commander and watched it for a 
sign. It was calm and serene. The men lay still, 
waiting. 

Decatur whispered to Catalano, and the pilot an- 
swered the hail. '• By Allah and the prophet," he 
whined, in their tongue, " we have had a sore time 
of it. For seven days we have tossed about on 
waves that rolled mountain high upon us. Never 
have I seen such waves. We are weary and sick. 
We have lost our anchors. We would make fast to 
your chains until we can find others." 

More dark faces ranged along the gunwales of 



THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 71 



the frigate, and peered through her ports, to look at 
the unfortunate stranger, 

"Who are you?" demanded the voice that had 
hailed. 

Catalan©, prompted by the American at his elbow, 
made further answer. " We are unhappy men that 
live by the sea," he said. " We have stuffs aboard 
for merchants of your town, and we would make fast 
to your chains, having lost our anchors." 

" What brig is that in the offing ? " came from the 
Philadelphia. They had caught sight of the Siren, 
and were anxious, fearing the Americans. 

The reply had been prepared. " That is the 
Transfer^'' Catalano told them. The Transfer was a 
British brig that had been bought by the Bashaw of 
Tripoli at Malta, and was daily expected. The Turks 
were satisfied. 

The pilot, alert to gain the fore chains of the frigate, 
chattered and gossiped with those on her decks, 
amusing them with the latest tales from eastern ports, 
and news of the American fleet. The listening Turks 
stared over at the moonlit deck of the ketch, seeing 
nothing but six Maltese sailors. 

Closer, closer, on the breath of the dying breeze, 
the ketch crept toward the chains of the frigate. 
A moment more, and then . . The men lying 

hidden on the deck of the small craft watched the 
face of their commander, waiting for the order to 
board. Their tight fingers whitened about the hafts 
of their boarding-pikes and the hilts of their cutlasses. 



72 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The Mastico hesitated ; she hung in the water ; 
she stopped. Her sails fell loose, flapped for an 
instant, and filled from the other side. A cats- 
paw of wind, puffing from the land, had caught 
them. The water gurgled under her stern, striking 
her with little spatting waves. Slowly she began to 
fall back ; to make sternway, drifting under all the 
guns of the heavy broadside, not twenty yards away. 
If they should be discovered now, there would be an 
end of it all, at once. Not all the courage in the 
world could save them from immediate destruc- 
tion. 

The hidden men, aware of the change in course, 
watched the face of their commander. It was 
calm as a summer's evening. ** Lower a boat," he 
ordered, softly. "Carry a line to the ring-bolt in the 
bows of the frigate. Make it fast." 

There was no need to tell them to hurry. Two 
sailors in their Maltese dress sprang into the lowered 
boat, took a line, and bent to the oars. They rowed 
with a show of indifference, lest they warn the enemy, 
singing snatches of an Italian song they had picked 
up in their wanderings. 

As they rowed, another boat appeared from be- 
neath the stern of the Philadelphia, making toward 
the ketch. It bore a hawser. The Turk would 
have had them make fast to his stern. 

The two in the ketch's boat, tying their line to the 
ring-bolt of the Philadelphia, saw the other coming, 
and understood. If it should reach the Mastico, the 



THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 73 

Turks in her would see the hidden crew ; the alarm 
would be given, and the end would come swiftly. 

Quickly the two made fast their line, and bent to 
their oars again. With strong stroke they rowed 
back to intercept the frigate's boat. They reached 
her before she gained the ketch, and took the hawser 
she carried, telling her crew, in broken Italian, that 
they would carry it to the ketch. The Turks, glad 
to be relieved of the task, turned back. That danger 
was past. 

The line that was fast to the frigate's ring-bolt 
was passed along the ketch's deck. From the 
shadows of the gunwales, from behind masts and 
barrels, hairy hands reached out and grasped it. 
The hidden crew hauled in with a steady pull. The 
ketch hung for a moment, checked her sternway, 
and forged ahead. Twenty yards, fifteen, ten, from 
the frigate's chains. Another minute and they 
would be in reach. 

Suddenly there was a cry of anger from the Phil- 
adelphia. " Dog 1 " roared a voice ; the voice that 
had first hailed ; •* you have told us lies. Your 
anchors are still on your decks ! What trick is 
this ? " 

Catalano turned pale, but Decatur was undis- 
turbed. With a swift motion of the hand he sig- 
naled his hidden crew to remain quiet, and to pull 
more stoutly. They obeyed. 

A man was running down the chains of the frigate. 
A cutlass gleamed in his hand. He reached the line 



74 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

that held the ketch, and hewed at it with his blade, 
stroke on stroke. Above, on the decks of the frig- 
ate, excitement was running higher. The Turks 
were beginning to suspect some trick. 

The line still held, and the ketch still forged ahead. 

A Tripolitan, peering farther over the side of the 
frigate, caught sight of the hairy arms reaching out 
of the shadows to pull on the line ; he saw the shad- 
ows bulked behind the bulwarks. " Amerikano ! " 
he shrieked. " Amerikano 1 ! Amerikano ! ! I " 

" Amerikano 1 Amerikano ! " The scream rang 
through the frigate, taken up by scores of voices. 
There was a great scurrying of feet ; a rushing to 
and fro of the astonished enemy. These devil Amer- 
ikanos 1 What would they not do ? 

There was no longer need for the Americans to 
conceal themselves. They leaped to their feet and 
pulled on the line that still held them to the frigate's 
bow. The man with the cutlass hacked at it as they 
pulled. It parted at last, but the ketch already had 
gained enough headway. She drifted alongside, 
surged forward, reached the chains and was made 
fast to them with the twist of another rope. 

And now the time had come. In utter silence, 
save for the heavy breathing and the occasional 
clank of their arms, the Americans rushed for the 
chains of the Philadelphia. Before the amazed 
Moslems could believe what was happening, they 
were swarming over her gunwales and through her 
ports. 




Decatur Capturing the Philadelphia 



THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 75 

Midshipman Morris was the first aboard. Lieu- 
tenant Decatur, leaping into the main chain plates, 
slipped and lost a step. Midshipman Laws, clam- 
bering through a port, caught the butt of his pistol 
and had to stop to free himself. But Morris was 
not long alone. A rush of men was at his side. It 
was as though they took form out of the air, so 
swiftly they appeared. 

The TripoHtans were dismayed. Some stopped 
to strike back, but most of them rushed to the other 
side of the vessel and leaped overboard. In a mo- 
ment the quarter-deck was cleared. Forming 
solidly, the Americans charged forward, sweeping 
the Tripolitans ofT the forecastle into the sea. " No 
prisoners," was the order. 

The Tripolitans below, hearing the scuffling on 
deck, and the screams, ran up to learn what it all 
meant, and ran howling back again to hide in the 
hold like rats, or leaped over the side. 

The decks were free. The Americans poured be- 
low. In many an odd corner and dark hole of the 
ship was fierce encounter, but it was not for long. 
Ten minutes after the first startled cry of 
"Amerikano" rang out on the African night the 
Americans were in complete possession of the 
frigate, and the waters about were specked with the 
bobbing heads of Turks and Moors and Arabs, 
swimming for their lives. 

Without delay the conquerors set about firing the 
ship. Commodore Preble had given strict orders 



76 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

against any attempt to bring the Philadelphia out, 
because of the danger, or there might have been an- 
other ending to this story. Oakum, soaked in tur- 
pentine, pitch, staves of tar barrels, were quickly 
handed up from the ketch and stowed about the 
frigate by the different parties of the crew, as had 
been planned. Matches were applied, and the fire 
leaped into life in half a dozen places. 

By the time the last firing party reached the decks 
again, flames were snapping through gun-ports and 
hatchways. Black smoke rolled up ; beneath the 
planking underfoot was a growing roar of flame ; a 
hissing and crackling. The growling fire fiend was 
already smacking his lips. 

There was now no chance that the Tripolitans 
could return and save the vessel from destruction. 
The fire had too good a start. Making sure of this, 
Lieutenant Decatur ordered his men back to the 
ketch. He was the last to leave ; the Mastico had 
already swung off when he quitted the Philadelphia ; 
he had to leap into the ketch's rigging from the 
bulwarks of the frigate. 

But the danger was not ended. There was no 
wind, and the Mastico clung alongside. The crew 
shoved off with sweeps and poles, but the ketch's 
boom was afoul, and her jigger sail flapped against 
the hot sides of the frigate's quarter. Red flames 
tongued out at her from port-holes, stretching to 
reach her canvas ; they whipped into her tiny cabin, 
where all her ammunition was stored, covered only 



THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 



II 



by a tarpaulin. And she would not clear herself 
from the tall sides of her victim. 

For precious moments the Americans could not 
find what held her. Some one discovered at last 
that it was the hawser that the Tripolitans had sent 
aboard in their own small boat. It had been made 
fast to the stern of the ketch, and had been forgot- 
ten. A dozen cutlasses whirled through the red air ; 
the hawser fell apart, and the Mastico drifted from 
the doomed ship. The men took to their long 
sweeps and rowed away. As they rowed, Decatur 
sent up a rocket as a signal to the Siren that the 
work was done. 

The flames had gained the frigate's deck. They 
rolled in huge balls along the planking. Ribbons 
of blaze uncurled out of port-holes, and wrapped 
themselves along her sides. A ruddy glare spread 
over the water ; a torrent of smoke streamed upward, 
lined with the flare of the flames, and shot with 
sparks. 

The Americans rowed heartily. Soon the double- 
shotted guns of the frigate would become heated and 
go off ; soon the boats and batteries of the Tripoli- 
tans would open on the little ketch, a fair mark in 
the pinkened waters of the bay. 

Flames ran up the frigate's masts, curving over 
at the tops like fiery capitals on fiery columns. Sput- 
tering serpents of fire twisted along shrouds and rig- 
ging, writhing through the rushing air. Strands of 
burning cordage squirmed and swung in the hot 



78 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

draught. Firebrands were tossed high on the 
swirHng blast, to fall sizzling into the sea ; black 
smoke billowed into the sky. 

The flare of the fire lay tawny over the heaving 
waters of the bay. The gunboats of the Tripolitans 
stood out on the red flood ; the batteries, fringed 
with black guns, blinked ; the white walls of Tripoli 
stared blankly at the astounding spectacle. People 
rushed bewildered from their houses into the narrow, 
steep streets. Soldiers ran up and down the ram- 
parts, yelling, gesticulating. And the little ketch, 
filled with the handful of brave men who had created 
the commotion, moved slowly across the midst of the 
brilliant harbor, a fair mark for every gunner. 

" Boom ! " A gunboat spoke to them, and a 
spurt of water leaped into the light a dozen fathoms 
away. The spray of it fell back in ruby drops. An- 
other shot, and another. All the gunboats were 
pounding away, and the land batteries were coming 
into action. The air shook with the cannonading ; 
the sea was lashed by the falling shot. 

The men pulled at their sweeps. Not a shot 
struck them. The enemy were too excited to fire 
accurately. At the stern of the ketch a group of 
officers watched the spectacle, paying no attention 
to the shot and shell that showered about them. A 
little apart from them Decatur stood in silence, gaz- 
ing wistfully at the seething mass of fire that had 
been the proud frigate Philadelphia. 

A flash, brighter than flame, burst from the midst 



THE MEN ON THE MASTICO 79 

of the fire, A shower of sparks flew upward through 
the ascending rush of flame. The roar of a gun 
came across the waters from the frigate. Another 
flash ; another shower of sparlcs ; another roar of a 
gun. Another, and another. The guns of the 
Philadelphia, becoming heated, were going off, one 
by one. 

Higher and higher, more and more madly, the 
billows of fire leaped from the burning vessel. The 
shot from the gunboats and the batteries fell farther 
and farther behind. The men at the sweeps, now 
near the Northern Passage, rested on their sweeps 
for a last look. 

Suddenly the mass of flame was rent asunder. 
There was a mighty puff of fire and smoke, a deaf- 
ening burst of sound rushed across the bay, and the 
Philadelphia leaped into a myriad burning frag- 
ments. The magazine had exploded. 

The light died out ; the swirling smoke and flame 
sucked upward, and spread across the astonished 
sky. Darkness descended ; the pale light of the 
moon was nothing after the brilliancy of the burning 
ship. 

There was the splashing of fragments falling back 
into the sea. A dozen bulging swells from where 
the ship had been caught and tossed the Mastico, 
and passed on to be lost in the waste waters of the 
sea. This was all. The thing was done. The 
Philadelphia was no more. 

The men on the Mastico bent to their sweeps 



8o BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

again in silence, and picked their way to where the 
boats of the Siren lay waiting for them, in answer 
to their signal rocket. It had become a story to be 
told through the years ; a story that will quicken the 
hearts and set blood bounding through the veins of 
youth as long as valor and victory are dear to the 
hearts of Americans. 

Admiral Nelson, hearing of the deed, pronounced 
it the most daring of the age. Lieutenant Decatur 
was promoted to a captaincy, and all the officers 
concerned received higher rank. Not one of the 
brave men was lost. 

Twoscore years later, in 1844, when Captain 
Breese of the Otmberland visited Tripoli he caused 
a portion of the wreck to be raised, and had the 
water-logged timbers made into souvenirs. That is 
all that remains of the frigate Philadelphia, except- 
ing the story. 



CHAPTER IV 

"DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP!" 

Captain James Lawrence laid down his knife 
and fork and looked across the breakfast table at 
the servant who had just spoken. " A British 
frigate, did you say?" he asked, briskly. 

"Yes, sir. A big British frigate, sir. In the 
offing, sir." 

"A frigate? You are certain of that? Not the 
Tenedos, line-of-battle ship ? " 

" No, sir. A frigate, sir. The sentry at the fort 
reported it a frigate." 

" And it is alone ? " continued Captain Lawrence. 

" Quite alone, sir. There is no other sail in sight. 
That is to say, no other ship-of-war, sir." 

Captain Lawrence exchanged glances with the 
friend with whom he was breakfasting ashore in the 
city of Boston. " You will have to excuse me, if you 
will be so good," he said, earnestly. " I shall have 
to go aboard at once." 

The friend showed concern. "What do you 
understand it to mean ? " he asked. 

" I take it to mean that Captain Broke has sent 
the Tenedos away from the station and takes this 
means of challenging the Chesapeake to come out 



82 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

and fight," returned Captain Lawrence, arising from 
the table. His two sons, who were breakfasting 
with him, arose also, in high excitement, and stood 
staring proudly at their father. It was something 
to have such a father ! It was something to know 
that the entire country acclaimed him a hero, and it 
was something to know that he was entitled to the 
fame and honor that had come to him. For had he 
not, as captain of the Hornet, attacked and captured 
the British ship Peacock ? And had he not been 
second in command of the Intrepid, that time Deca- 
tur stole into the harbor of Tripoli and burned the 
frigate Philadelphia, which had fallen into the hands 
of the Tripolitans ? 

His friend got up from the table and laid an affec- 
tionate hand on Captain Lawrence's wrist. There 
was none who knew the man who did not love him. 
A great, strong, sturdy hero he was ; a man of the 
finest grain, courteous, well-mannered, gentle, the 
core of chivalry ; tall, handsome, with a fine head 
borne finely on broad shoulders. 

" Captain Lawrence," his friend began, " are you 
going out to meet the Shannon ? " 

" Without delay," returned the officer, emphatic- 
ally, moving toward the door. 

His friend delayed him. ** Captain Lawrence," 
he said, '* I can understand your feelings in the mat- 
ter, and I can only applaud them. It would be try- 
ing indeed for you to remain safely in the harbor 
with an enemy of equal strength flaunting his flag 



" DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP ! " 83 

in front of you. But there are many things to be 
thought of. You are scarcely ready for such an 
encounter. Your crew is raw, and many of them 
are green hands. Many more of them are for- 
eigners ; some of them are even EngHshmen. You 
do not know them, and they do not know you. You 
have never sailed with the officers who are under 
you, and you have never sailed in the Chesapeake. 
It is well known that she is not a fortunate ship ; it 
would be well for you to know her and your crew 
better before you sail against so formidable an 
enemy, for the Shannon is reputed to be the best 
vessel of her class in the British navy." 

'* Which is another reason why I should proceed 
at once to meet her," answered Captain Lawrence, 
with a kindling eye. The thought of the contest 
was already stirring his blood ; he saw the honor 
and renown that would come to him from success in 
the encounter. 

" But there are many things to be thought of," 
repeated his friend. " Your reputation as a man of 
courage is in no danger ; no one could think that 
you declined to fight from fear. It would be under- 
stood that it was only a sane caution on your part if 
you delayed meeting the enemy until you were bet- 
ter prepared." 

Captain Lawrence gently removed his friend's 
detaining hand from his wrist, and looked him 
proudly between the eyes. " Once I lay off the har- 
bor of San Salvador, Brazil, in the Hornet,*' he said. 



84 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

"Inside the harbor was the British ship Bonne Cito- 
yen. I sent in a challenge, asking her commander 
to come out and fight. He refused to do so. I 
know what my men thought of him, I know what 
his men thought of him, I know what I thought of 
him, and still think of him. He was a coward. I 
would not have my men, or the men of the Shminon, 
or Captain Broke, or my countrymen, think that I 
am a coward. If I knew that I was taking my ves- 
sel into certain destruction I would go without hesi- 
tation. But it is not so ; the Chesapeake as she is 
is a match for any vessel in her class. You are very 
good to warn me. I receive your advice as it is 
given, in the spirit of friendship, but I cannot follow 
it. Good-bye. Commend me to my friends and bear 
a message for me to my wife. Tell her what has 
taken place between us. She will understand, and 
be glad that it is so." 

His young sons slipped to his side, each of them 
taking a hand. He turned toward the door and left 
the house, making haste toward the water-front. 

It was the first of June, 1813. For the first time 
in several days the sky was clear, and the sun bright. 
It sparkled and danced over the waves of Boston 
harbor, ruffled under a pleasant breeze. Out in the 
harbor lay the Chesapeake, the Monday wash of her 
men hanging from rope and rigging. Far out at 
the mouth of the harbor gleamed the towering white 
sails of the British frigate, sailing to and fro in defi- 
ance, hull down below the horizon. 



- DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP ! " 85 

Loyal officers on the wharf tried to dissuade him 
from going out to meet her. " Wait," they urged. 
He shook his head. He l^issed his children with a 
stout heart, patted them on the head, laughed away 
their tears of pride and anxiety, stepped into a boat, 
and was rowed to the Chesapeake. 

His friend was right when he had called the Chesa- 
peake an unfortunate ship. It was the Chesapeake 
that had been overhauled and fired upon by the 
British ship Leopard in Chesapeake Bay six years 
before. The captain of the British ship, maintaining 
that some of the crew of the Chesapeake were desert- 
ers from the English navy, had demanded their 
return. When this had been refused, he had opened 
fire. The American ship was in no condition to 
make reply, not having expected an encounter with 
an enemy. She was just putting to sea ; her ropes 
were about her decks ; there had been no time to 
make things shipshape. There were no matches 
for the guns ; she would have been obliged to haul 
down her flag without answering with one shot if 
Lieutenant William Henry Allen, in command of 
the guns of the second division, had not taken a 
live coal from the galley fire in his naked fingers 
and touched one off. The flag was hauled down, 
after the Chesapeake had been under the fire of the 
Leopard'' s guns for fifteen minutes, and the Ameri- 
can sailors had the humiliation of seeing four of 
their crew taken off by the British ship. 

In the war with Great Britain which soon after- 



86 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

ward followed, the Chesapeake had been unlucky. 
She had come to Boston, where she now was, from a 
cruise of four months in which she had captured only 
a few worthless prizes, while her sister ships were 
striking heavy blows at the honor of England on the 
seas, and were gaining for themselves fame and 
fortune. As soon as she got back to Boston she 
was blockaded, together with the Coitstiliitioriy which 
was undergoing repairs, by the British line-of-battle 
ship Tenedosy and the frigate Shannon. 

Captain Lawrence, returning from his victory in 
the Hornet over the Peacock, had asked for the Con- 
stitiitiony and had been given command of it, but the 
order had been withdrawn, and he was placed in 
charge of the Chesapeake. He was not pleased, but 
was too patriotic and loyal to complain, and went to 
Boston to assume command. He had been in charge 
of the ship for ten days ; ten days full of trouble and 
annoyances. 

His greatest trouble was with the crew. Your 
sailor is a superstitious fellow, and the Chesapeake 
was known among them as a hoodoo ship. They 
would not sail on her. There was another reason 
why sailors were hard to get. All the good men 
were shipping in privateersmen. The chances for 
prize money were greater on board a privateer, and 
the men did not have to submit to the rigid discipline 
of the naval officers. Because of the difficulty in 
getting good hands, the riffraff of the water-front 
was shipped aboard the frigate, and a number of 



" DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP ! " 87 

farmer lads were taken ; good enough lads in them- 
selves, but wholly unfit for immediate service at sea„ 
' The crew, when it was finally filled, consisted of 
men of all races and colors. Many of them were 
Portuguese, and, as Lawrence's friend had said, there 
were Englishmen in the crew. And to make bad 
matters worse, the old sailors, who had been aboard 
in her recent cruise, were grumbling and sullen over 
the distribution of prize money. You must remem- 
ber that when a war-ship takes a prize, the money 
the prize brings is divided between the officers and 
men. These men thought they had been cheated ; 
and when a sailor thinks he has been cheated he is a 
hard customer to handle. 

And worst of all, the officers on the Chesapeake 
were new in their positions, and, with one exception, 
new to the vessel. First Lieutenant Ludlow had 
sailed with her as third lieutenant in her recent 
cruise. The third and fourth lieutenants had just 
been promoted from midshipmen, and were not only 
not familiar with the Chesapeake, but with their 
duties in general. 

Everything was in confusion when Captain 
Lawrence reached the deck of the Chesapeake. 
Many men of the crew were just coming aboard, 
some of them for the first time. Their hammocks 
littered the decks. Others of the crew stood about 
in idle groups, not knowing their duties, or not car- 
ing to tend to them. On the brink of an encounter 
which he knew must be a fierce one, the sight must 



88 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

have been discouraging to the brave man. But he 
bore himself above it, trusting to his own valor and 
the luck and pluck of the navy to bear him through. 

Going to his cabin he wrote a note to the secre- 
tary of the navy. " An English frigate is now in 
sight from my deck," he wrote. '* I have sent a pilot 
boat out to reconnoitre ; and, should she be alone, I 
am in hopes to give a good account of her before 
night. My crew appear to be in fine spirits, and I 
hope they will do their duty." 

Whether he was trying to make himself believe 
that, or whether he wrote the words as a matter of 
form, we cannot know. Neither can we know what 
he would have written, or what he would have done, 
if he could have overheard the talk that was going 
forward among this same crew at the moment he was 
writing. 

One group was standing under the starboard 
gangway near the forecastle. The gangways were 
long platforms that ran from the level of the quarter- 
deck, which was higher than the main-deck and ex- 
tended as far forward as the mainmast, to the fore- 
castle, also higher than the main-deck, at the level 
of the quarter-deck. There was one on each side of 
the ship, affording a passage from the quarter-deck 
to the forecastle without making it necessary to 
descend to the main-deck and climb up again. 

This group was under the gangway on the star- 
board side, near the forecastle. They were a dozen 
men ; Portuguese, Englishmen, some good-for-noth- 



" DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP ! " 89 

ing Americans, and a negro or two. They were all 
crowding about a Portuguese, the boatswain's mate. 
He was a villainous-looking rogue, with long 
mustachios, a hooked nose, and an ugly scar over 
his wicked eyes. He was one of the few aboard who 
had been on the vessel during its recent voyage ; 
they were listening to his complaints. 

"This is a bad luck shep," he was growling. 
" We make long voyage in it before, and come on 
one, two, tree leetle shep, which we take, but it was 
not'ing. Poof I They were scarvy shep. So leetle 
money as that ! " He snapped his fingers in the air 
to show his contempt for the prizes they had taken. 
" We sail tree, four mont', and fine not'ing. She be 
slow in the water like a hog. She wallow in the 
waves ; she no good sailer. T'en we come home, 
and dey no give us our money. We show t'em, for 
no give us our money. They t'ink we fight for t'em 
like brave mans when t'ey no give us our money ! 
Bah I We show t'em I " 

The others muttered a chorus to his growlSp al- 
though not many of them had the same cause of 
complaint. They scowled up and down the decks, 
letting their ugly glances loiter about the quarter- 
deck. 

" T'ey t'ink we let our blood run for t'at we lof 
t'em," went on the Portuguese. " Ah, yes, we lof 
t'em. We lof t'em so much t'at we will fight and 
keel ourselves ; oh, yes ! " 

The others grinned at his sarcasm. 



90 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

" We have no chance against this Shannon^' 
spoke up an Enghsh sailor. " I know what she is. 
A shipmate of mine was in her. That man Broke is 
the best fighter they have. And shoot, man ! Why, 
they can hit a cask afloat in the water in any sea. My 
shipmate told me that they used to throw over a cask 
and fire at it, with extra rations of grog for the gun 
crew that hit it first. It never lasted many minutes 
in the water, let me tell you, and what chance have 
we against that ship ? 'Tis the best in their navy, 
I'm teUing you ; the best manned, and the best 
drilled. Why, most of his men have been with 
Broke for going on seven years." Which was quite 
true ; he and his crew worked like a clock together. 

" We're goin' to Halifax, that's where we're 
goin' ! " piped a negro. " A friend ob mine who 
lived all ob his life in Nova Scotia, he done call out 
to me, jes' as we was leavin' the dock to come 
aboard : * Good-bye, George,' says he. ' You's 
gwine to Halifax afore you comes back to Bostaing. 
Gib my lub to requirin' friends and tell 'em Ah 
berry well.' Dey all knowed we was goin' dere, fast 
enough, but dey didn't like nohow to be told it, dose 
people on the dock, and dey went foh ma friend 
good. I allow he got pretty bad messed up afore 
dey let him go." 

The Portuguese boatswain's mate shrugged his 
shoulders and pulled at his long mustachios, to show 
how little he cared whether they went to Halifax or 
some other place. At the moment there was a 



" DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP ! " 91 

hubbub under the forecastle, and a gang of drunken 
sailors came reeling out, driven by one of the 
lieutenants. They had been ashore drinking their 
good-byes. The Portuguese slipped up to them and 
whispered something in Portuguese. The men 
turned on the lieutenant, who was chasing them out 
of the forecastle, with ugly snarls. He faced them, 
cutlass in hand. The boatswain's mate slunk away, 
and the gang succumbed to the show of force on the 
part of the officer. But it was not a pretty thing to 
have happen on the verge of a stubborn engage- 
ment with the best vessel the enemy boasted. 

Twelve o'clock. Captain Lawrence came upon 
the quarter-deck, trumpet in hand, and issued an 
order. The boatswain's whistle sounded ; the sailors 
came tumbling to the mainmast, not knowing quite 
what was expected of them. The fourth lieutenant 
went forward with some of them. Presently there 
was the sound of a sailors' chantey, and the anchor 
windlass began to wheeze and squeal as the men 
hove up on the anchor. Others were sent aloft to 
unfurl the sails ; others stood by halliards and sheets. 

The foretopsail broke out and was sheeted home. 
The maintopsail followed. One by one the other 
sails blossomed on the bare masts, the Chesapeake 
heeled gently, and began to move through the water. 
Captain Lawrence, standing on the quarter-deck, 
gazing far across the waters to where the white sails 
of the enemy showed over the sea, called the men to 
the mainmast. As they mustered, he whispered to 



92 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

a quartermaster at his elbow ; the man jerked a signal 
halliard, and a pennant, that had hung in a bunch at 
the main truck, burst into the breeze. It bore, in 
large letters, the legend : " Free Trade and Sailors' 
Rights," the motto of the American navy and the cry 
of the war. 

The Portuguese boatswain's mate, shifting about 
on the edge of the mustered men, saw the signal 
pennant and sneered. " Ah, yes, we haf our sailors' 
rights," he snarled. " We haf t'e right to sail and 
fight and keel ourselves, and t'ey have the right to 
all the money we win for t'em with our fighting and 
our dying ! " 

Captain Lawrence turned to the men and began 
to speak to them, calling upon them to do their duty 
and promising them a ready victory. He had not 
gone far when certain coughings and hawkings that 
had commenced when he began grew into sly cat- 
calls and impudent interruptions. Lawrence paused 
and glanced sternly down among the men until the 
disturbance ceased. If he had not known before 
what manner of crew he had he must have known it 
now. 

He was beginning again when the Portuguese 
boatswain's mate called out from the skirts of the 
crowd. " Where ees our prize money ? " he shouted. 

" That is something I know little about," returned 
Captain Lawrence, quietly. " If there is any money 
due any of you which, through a misunderstanding, 
you have not obtained, you may depend upon the 



" DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP ! " 93 

honesty and honor of the government to pay it to you 
in good time." 

" We want it now ! " " Where is our money I " came 
from half a dozen, emboldened by the Portuguese. 

" You ask us to fight for you, and then, if we are 
not keeled, you cheat us of the money we earn," 
cried the surly boatswain's mate, closing his eyes to 
slits and showing his teeth beneath his heavy mus- 
tachios. 

The pride of the man on the quarter-deck would 
not suffer his country to be accused of cheating its 
sailors. Captain Lawrence turned to the purser. 
*' Take the men aside and make out checks for 
them," he ordered. 

How different from the men of the Hornet, which 
he had commanded, or the Constitution, which he had 
hoped to command ! Quarreling over a bit of 
money when they were sailing out to meet an enemy 
and fight for the honor of their flag ! Even when he 
called the attention of the crew to the flag bearing 
the motto : " Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," as he 
concluded his speech to them, there was only the 
faintest sort of a cheer, and they went back to their 
stations sullen and listless. 

A feeling of heaviness spread through the ship. 
The men leaned against their guns, silent, or grum- 
bling. The officers of the ship, going about on their 
business, walked with lagging feet and stooping 
shoulders, as though bearing a burden. There was 
no buoyancy, no joy, as there was wont to be when 



94 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

an American vessel went into action against tlie 
British with the emblem, " Free Trade and Sailors' 
Rights," flying from the masthead. Even Captain 
Lawrence, standing in the majesty of his towering 
muscular frame and fine dignity on the quarter-deck, 
or passing among the men with words of confidence 
and cheer, seemed to feel the heaviness. His voice 
lacked ring ; his eye was not as confident in its flash- 
ing as it had been that day the Hornet was about to 
fire into the Peacock. *' Peacock them, boys, Peacock 
them," he said, trying to throw enthusiasm into his 
words ; but they fell flat on ears that cared not what 
he said. 

Slowly the beautiful ship clipped out of the harbor 
across the sparkling sea. In her wake came a fleet 
of smaller craft, laden with people from Boston, 
anxious to see the fight All along the shore, in the 
direction of Marblehead and Salem, people were 
hurrying afoot and in vehicles, to catch what glimpse 
they could of it. They had long been fretful under 
the blockade the British ships had held in front of 
their port ; they rejoiced in this blow that was to be 
struck to loosen the hold of the English fleet. 

Four o'clock, and the Chesapeake was forging 
through the waters in the direction of the Shannon. 
Now the hull of the Shannon stood out clear against 
the waters of the sea ; her fringe of black guns was 
distinct against the band of yellow which passed all 
along the length of the English ship where her gun- 
ports were. 



" DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP ! " 95 

"Boom." A gun on the windward side of the 
Chesapeake spoke out, telHng the EngHshmen that 
they were ready for the fight. The Chesapeake was 
to the windward of her enemy, bearing down rapidly. 
She might have crossed her stern and raked ; Cap- 
tain Broke feared that mancEUvre ; but Captain Law- 
rence disdained to take such an advantage. He 
would fight it out, yard-arm to yard-arm, and might 
the best man win ! 

The Shannoti was waiting under topsails and jib. 
The Chesapeake drew abreast. The men were at 
the guns ; the sailors and marines in the tops. 
Slowly the bow of the American ship forged ahead ; 
now her bowsprit was even with the stern of the 
enemy ; now the ships were beginning to overlap, 
fifty yards apart. The shadow of the Chesapeake^ s 
sails, cast by the setting sun, lay across the decks of 
the Shannon. 

A flash from the sternmost gun on the English- 
man, a boom, and a shot came rushing across the 
narrow strip of water that was between them. Be- 
fore it struck the Chesapeake, another gun, next for- 
ward to the first, had spoken, and so they went, one 
after the other, as the advancing vessel came within 
range. 

The guns had been loaded alternately with two 
round shot and a keg containing one hundred and 
fifty musket balls, and a round shot with a double- 
headed shot on top of it. The destruction from the 
first fire was appalling. Captain Lawrence, glanc- 



96 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

ing along his decks, saw a cloud of splinters, ham- 
mocks, and other wreckage sweep across, mingled 
with men, killed and wounded. 

Something struck him a sharp blow in the leg, 
above the knee, leaving a dull, beating pain where 
it had hit. He looked down and saw the blood 
come sopping through his breeches about a hole. 
One of the musket balls had found him. His leg 
grew weak in an instant, but he leaned against the 
companionway and watched the fight, giving direc- 
tions. 

They told him that his sailing-master had been 
killed by the first broadside. He saw Lieutenant 
Ludlow reeling, and saw two spots of blood on his 
clothing ; he saw wounded men crawling and being 
dragged below to the cockpit. 

The Chesapeake answered with a roar. Both ships 
were in full action. The air was beaten with loud 
sound. The small boats that had come out to see 
the fight, cruising about at a distance, saw the first 
few flashes, and then a dense cloud of yellow smoke 
concealed all but the tops of the masts, where the 
sails hung loosely as the two ships surged side by 
side in mortal combat. 

Well did the cask-shooting of the British gunners 
stand them in stead that day. Their shots tore 
through the sides of the Chesapeake, sweeping men 
from their guns, tearing them, hurling them across 
the decks before a swarm of spinning slivers. The 
ends of severed ropes came swirling down from the 



" DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP I " 97 

rigging, to hang in long, swinging slireds, useless, 
tangling with the rigging that still stood. 

The American gunners were not all sullen and 
laggards. Tliey fired as fast and as hard as they 
could in the face of the storm that was sweeping 
destruction down upon them, and their shots were 
not without effect. One of them, passing in at a 
gun-port on the Shannoii, disabled the gun, broke 
the leg of the captain of the gun, and narrowly 
missed Captain Broke, who was stepping over the 
gun chain at the moment. 

The speed at which the Chesapeake had come up 
was beginning to carry her ahead of the enemy. 
Captain Lawrence, leaning against the companion- 
way to ease his wounded leg, saw it, and ordered 
the sails to be backed. But the sailing-master was 
dead, and the rigging was shot so badly that the 
mancEUvre could not be carried out. In the attempt 
the vessel swung into the wind, and went drifting 
down toward the Shanno7t, stern on. 

Now the English poured in a murderous fire. 
The stern guns on the Shannon raked the Chesapeake 
from stern to stem ; the forward guns cross-fired her 
deck. In the tops English marines, armed with 
muskets and hand-grenades, picked off the gunners. 
Three men had already been shot from the wheel of 
the Chesapeake. 

The two vessels came together, the stern of the 
Chesapeake grinding against the sides of the Shannon 
just forward of the main chains. The stern-ports 



98 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

of the American were beaten in ; men were deserting 
her guns. The Portuguese boatswain's mate was 
nowhere to be seen. 

" Call up the boarders !" cried Captain Lawrence, 
seeing a chance to carry the enemy by storm when 
the two vessels came together. 

The British marines were pouring in a killing hail 
of lead from their ranged muskets. 

Where was the bugler, to sound the bugle call for 
the boarders ? Midshipmen ran to look for him ; it 
was the negro George for whom they searched ; he 
who had been in the group with the Portuguese 
before the fight, whose friend had told him he was 
going to Halifax. 

They did not find him< At a word from Lawrence, 
midshipmen and lieutenants ran to call up the 
boarders by word of mouth. Running here and 
there, they found George, the negro bugler, hiding 
under the stern of the launch. They dragged him 
out ; he was pale with fear. " Sound the call ! " they 
cried. 

He put the bugle to his lips, and blew, but only a 
feeble sound came from the instrument ; the man was 
too frightened to blow it. 

Lieutenant Law of the Shannon's marines, looking 
through a rift in the smoke, saw the white vest of 
Captain Lawrence, where he leaned against the 
companionway, waiting for the boarders to come up 
that he might lead them aboard the enemy. He 
snatched a gun from a marine, aimed it, and fired. 




^ 



o 



" DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP ! " 99 

Captain Lawrence crumpled up and fell to the deck. 
Lieutenant Ludlow, mortally hurt, saw him sink, and 
sobbed. 

Strong arms raised the commander. He was shot 
through the abdomen. His arms hung limp as they 
carried him below ; his head swung from side to side 
with their steps. 

The fire slackened. Captain Lawrence raised his 
lids ; his lips moved. " Tell the men to fire faster ! " 
he said, in steady voice. " Fight her till she sinks or 
strikes. Don't give up the ship 1 " 

Here and there men on the decks of the Chesapeake 
were sneaking away and stealing down below, out 
of the murderous draft of iron and lead that was 
rushing through the ship. There was no one forward 
to command the gunners ; their guns ceased speak- 
ing. There was no one anywhere to give command. 
Everything was helter-skelter. 

They laid the stricken American on a cot in the 
cockpit ; surgeons hovered over him, knowing from 
the first that he was beyond aid. His face was pale, 
but his jaw was set firmly. " Keep the guns going ! " 
he ordered. " Fight her till she strikes or sinks. 
Don't give up the ship ! " 

Boatswain Stevens, of the Shannon, appeared at 
her main chains with lashings. He leaned out, and 
cast them about a stanchion on the Chesapeake. A 
half dozen cutlasses bit deeply into his arm. He 
made the lashings fast ; his arm fell into the sea as 
he finished lashing the vessels together. 



loo BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The flukes of an anchor hanging from the sides of 
the Shannon caught in one of the Chesapeake' s 
ports ; the two vessels were bound tight. 

" Don't give up the ship ! " rang the voice of 
Captain Lavi^rence, down in the cockpit. The pain 
from his wound was creeping over him ; his senses 
were swinging out of him. " Don't give up the 
ship ! Don't give up the ship !" he murmured. 

Captain Broke, seeing the confusion on board the 
American vessel, and perceiving that the enemy was 
not going to board, ordered the marines to follow 
him. A hand-grenade, dropped by a man from the 
yard-arm of the Shanno7i, fell in an arm chest on the 
quarter-deck of the Chesapeake. There was a flash, 
a report, and the air was filled with flying debris. 
The Americans on the quarter-deck, having no one to 
lead them, scattered. The Portuguese boatswain's 
mate beckoned them below. 

" Boarders away ! " cried Captain Broke, and 
leaped aboard, followed by a handful of marines. 

Those below did not know the enemy had 
boarded ; they did not know anything that was 
going on above. The ship was in disorder ; it was 
a body without brains. 

Some few turned to meet the advancing English- 
men. But the crew for the most part ran from their 
guns, and sought safety below. Leading them to 
refuge was the Portuguese boatswain's mate. 
"We'll teach t'em to cheat us of our prize money ! " 
he snarled, as he ran away. 



"DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP!" loi 

Bright through the air flashed the sword of the 
EngHsh captain. Mr. Livermore, chaplain of the 
Chesapeake^ stood almost alone to oppose him. He 
advanced, fire flashing from his eyes. In his hand 
was a pistol. He aimed it at Broke, and pulled. The 
ball went wild. In the next instant, the Toledo 
blade in the hands of the Englishman described a 
flashing arc through the air and descended toward 
the chaplain's head. He raised an arm and fended 
it off, but the steel bit deeply, and he reeled to the 
deck under the force of the blow. 

The noise of scuffling feet came to the ears of the 
American captain, lying mortally wounded in the 
cockpit. "Fire faster!" he said faintly. "Don't 
give up the ship ! " 

Some one told him that the enemy had carried 
the quarter-deck. He struggled to raise himself on 
the bed, but sank back, shot with a sudden increase 
of pain. "Then the officers of the deck haven't 
toed the mark ! " he cried, his voice stronger for a 
moment. " The Shannon was whipped when I left 
the deck ! " His eyelids fluttered and closed. He 
twisted with a spasm of pain, and sank back, relax- 
ing. " Don't give up the ship ! " he murmured. 
" Don't give up the ship ! " The anguish had stripped 
the sense from his body but the thoughts of his 
soul were fixed on that : " Don't give up the ship ! " 

Captain Broke, at the head of his men, rushed for- 
ward along the main-deck and gangways. The 
American marines fought back, but were pushed 



I02 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

away. Up in the foretop of the Chesapeake a band 
of them were firing down on the boarders. A can- 
non on the Shannon, loaded with cannister, was 
lifted and shouted out at them. The murderous 
charge shrieked through the air, and the top was 
thenceforth silent. 

" Don't give up the ship ! " murmured the voice 
of the stricken man in the cockpit. 

Back in Boston, two young lads were listening to 
the distant muffled roar of the fight, thinking of their 
father as they had last seen him, tall, straight, clear- 
eyed, brave, noble, a father to be proud of. They 
fancied that they saw him now on the quarter-deck, 
guiding the ship to victory ; they saw the humbled 
English captain handing him his sword in token of 
surrender. They heard in their thoughts the hur- 
rahs of the American sailors as the British flag came 
down from the ensign-gaff. With hands clutching 
each other, they dreamed of the honor and glory 
that their father would bring back. 

And back in Boston the man with whom Captain 
Lawrence had eaten breakfast that morning was 
opening a message that had just come, addressed to 
the captain. It had been brought there from Cap- 
tain Broke by an American sailor who had been a 
prisoner on the Shanjioft, and had been liberated to 
carry the message. " As the Chesapeake now 
appears to be ready for sea," the letter read, " I 
request you will do me the honor to meet the Shan- 
non with her, ship to ship, to try the fortunes of our 



"DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP!" 103 

respective flags. To an officer of your character, it 
requires some apology for proceeding to further 
particulars. Be assured, sir, it is not from any doubt 
I can entertain of your wishing to close with my 
proposal, but merely to provide an answer to any 
objection which might be made, and very reason- 
ably, upon the chance of our receiving any unfair 
support." The letter went on to assure Captain Law- 
rence that all other British vessels would be sent away 
before the day of combat. There was added a care- 
ful statement of the strength of the Shannon, that 
Lawrence might understand that the ships were 
fairly matched. 

" What a pity, what a pity ! " sighed the man. 
" If Lawrence had only had this before he left, he 
might have set a day for the fight without compro- 
mising his honor, and have prepared himself better for 
it." And the man shook his head sadly, with a pre- 
monition that the day was going badly with his 
friend. 

Up to the forecastle dashed the British marines, 
Captain Broke at their head. As they were press- 
ing across the deck, Lieutenant Cox, who had just 
heard that the enemy was aboard, came up from 
below, and fell in with them, not knowing in the con- 
fusion which were friends and which were enemies. 
He soon learned, for they hacked at him with their 
cutlasses. But when he looked for friends with 
whom he could rally to meet the onslaught, he saw 
none. The deck was deserted. He only saw, 



I04 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

through a hatchway, the rascally Portuguese boat- 
swain's mate opening the main hatch and letting 
some British marines down into the hold. 

" Don't give up the ship ! " broke from the lips of 
the dying man in the cockpit. 

Now the two ships broke apart and drifted away 
from each other. If Lawrence had been there, if the 
sailing-master had not been killed, if there had been 
any one to lead, they might even now have conquered, 
for the English captain was on board with only 
a few marines behind him, and they could have 
taken him captive. But there was no one to lead. 
Lieutenant Ludlow had long since gone below, over- 
come by his wounds ; Lieutenant Cox was confused 
and hopeless, and the brave soul that would have 
risen above the situation lay down in the cockpit, 
breathing : " Don't give up the ship 1 Don't give 
up the ship 1 " 

A little knot of sturdy defenders still stood on the 
forecastle, braving the oncoming English. They 
rushed upon the conquerors with the fury of desper- 
ate men. For a moment the advance was held 
back ; in the next Broke himself overbore the de- 
fense, dashing headlong into the struggle. With 
one sweep of his Toledo he cut down the first who 
opposed him, but the next hewed his cutlass through 
the skull of the Englishman, clear to the brain. 

Broke fell ; the blade had stopped a thirty-second 
of an inch short of taking his life at once. Beside 
him fell an American seaman, dying of a wound. 



" DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP ! " 105 

The two grappled. Weak with the loss of blood 
and the shock of their wounds, their struggle was 
feeble, but they were intent on each other's death. 
The American, with a last rally of his ebbing 
strength, got on top of the English captain, picked 
up a bayonet, and was gathering strength to press 
it home, when an English marine came up. 

The marine, in the excitement of the encounter, 
was about to thrust his bayonet through the body 
of his own commander, when Broke called out, 
" Pooh, pooh, you fool ! Don't you know your 
captain ? " And the fellow, changing the direction 
of his blow, slew the American as he was swinging 
his raised bayonet for the fatal stroke. 

Down below in the cockpit the proud soul of 
James Lawrence was murmuring : " Don't give up 
the ship ! Don't give up the ship ! " 

And they did not give up the ship, in a sense. 
There was no one left to give it up. The British 
simply took possession. Lieutenant Watt of the 
British marines went and pulled down the ensign. 
As he did so a shot from the Shannon killed him. 
Some on board thought the Chesapeake was still an 
American ship, and some thought that it had be- 
come a British ship. Here men were still fighting ; 
there they had ceased and were talking it over, 
captor and prisoner. 

Sam went to Halifax, as his negro friend had 
prophesied he would when he left the wharf at Boston 



io6 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

to go aboard the frigate. James Lawrence died on 
the passage thither, and Captain Broke hovered 
between Hfe and death. He finally recovered and 
lived to enjoy immense fame and popularity in 
England as the only man who had captured a Yankee 
war-ship. 

Halifax went in mourning for the death of Captain 
Lawrence, whose treatment of the Peacock^ s crew had 
won for him the regard of the people there. His 
body was interred in Halifax, but six weeks later was 
brought to Boston and carried thence to New York, 
where it found a final resting-place in Trinity church- 
yard. 

This is the inscription on his tomb ; you may see 
it for yourself when you go to New York. 

" Neither the fury of battle, the anguish of a mortal 
wound, nor the horrors of approaching death could 
subdue his gallant spirit. His dying words were : 
' Don't give up the ship ! ' " 



CHAPTER V 

THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 

Alexander Perry had forgotten the dignity 
that becomes a young man of twelve years about to 
enter the United States navy as midshipman and 
was dancing about the floor of his father's house 
in unrestrained glee. " Whooppee 1 " he shouted, 
and "Whurroooo!" 

The cause of young Alexander's excitement was 
his big brother Oliver Hazard Perry. Oliver was 
the sort of brother that would excite any proper 
young man to enthusiasm. He was a sailor, and a 
lieutenant in the navy ; he had fought Frenchmen in 
the West Indies and Turks on the Barbary Coast ; he 
had built gunboats, and had been in a wreck. Now, 
although he was only twenty-seven years old, he 
was on his way to take command of the American 
naval force in Lake Erie and have a fight with the 
British fleet that was cruising up and down there at 
will. 

But more than all this — he was going to take his 
brother Alexander along with him and let him help 
fight the Englishmen. That was surely enough to 
set any boy prancing and leaping about the floor of 
his father's house, I should fancy. 



io8 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

" Hush, hush, Alexander," his father was saying 
from time to time as he talked things over with 
Lieutenant Oliver. " Don't make such a noise," 

A father would have to say that to a prancing 
boy, no matter how proud he might be of the spirit 
which his son was showing. With Oliver it w^as 
different. Not being the boy's father, he could smile 
quite frankly, and he did so. Oliver had arrived 
that afternoon from Newport, where he had been in 
command of the fleet of gunboats. He was on his 
way to Sackett's Harbor, to report to Commodore 
Chauncey, in command on Lake Ontario, and 
Lieutenant Perry's superior. 

" I feel like hopping about myself," said Oliver, 
watching Alexander, who was gradually hushing, 
under the reproof of his father, " I had begun to 
think that every one was going to have a chance in 
this war but myself." Perry had waited for a long 
time for a command to go to sea, but, until his ap- 
pointment to Lake Erie, the best that he got was a 
flotilla of gunboats at Newport. 

" You've got a task on your hands, my boy," said 
Christopher Perry, the father. He was an old salt ; 
he had commanded the General Greeney a frigate of 
the navy. 

" I know it, father," replied Oliver. 

" What's your force ? " 

" We haven't any," replied the young lieutenant, 
with a shrug of the shoulders. "Two brigs and 
three gunboats are building at Erie, and there are 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 109 

some vessels at the navy yard at Black Rock, above 
Buffalo, but they are bottled up there by the British 
at Fort George. We've still to build our ships." 

'• Yes, and fit them out," rejoined his father. " I 
don't speak to discourage you, my boy, but I want 
to prepare you for disappointments. You are so 
overjoyed to get the command that I am afraid you 
will not stop to think of all you must do." 

" I think I know what is called for, father," re- 
turned Oliver, modestly. 

" I have perfect faith in you, lad," said the man. 
*' You have a chance to win fame and renown, and 
do your country a great service," he went on. " If 
you win against the odds, and I know you will, you 
will have nothing to wish for from your country, and 
from posterity. When you have wiped the British 
off Lake Erie, General Harrison can march into 
Canada without trouble, and we shall regain the 
northwest territory, lost to us by the surrender of 
Hull at Detroit. It is a glorious chance, my boy, 
and I rejoice with you." 

Lieutenant Perry's eyes danced with enthusiasm. 
He got up from his chair and paced the floor, 
which was his way of prancing. " There's lots to be 
done, father, I know," he said, " but I am going to 
do it. I am going to drive the British fleet off the 
lake if it costs me my life I I have got to begin 
with the building of a fleet. Then I must get rig- 
ging and stores and guns and powder and ball ; and 
then I must get men. I don't know where any of 



no BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

them are coming from, but I'll get them, and 

then " He finished with a look of eagerness as 

he paced up and down. 

" When are you going ? " said his father. 

" Now ; right away," answered the young lieuten- 
ant. In an hour he and Alexander were on the 
road. 

The father's home was in Lebanon, Connecticut, 
about half-way between Newport, Rhode Island, 
and Hartford. It was late in February ; the weather 
was cold, and the roads wretched. The two com- 
panions had a hard time of it to Hartford, where 
they got into the post road to Albany and got along 
easier. 

Commodore Chauncey was waiting at Albany for 
Lieutenant Perry. Chauncey was in command of 
the naval forces on the Great Lakes ; Perry was under 
him. He had a fleet on Lake Ontario, with which 
he was playing hide-and-seek with a British fleet. 
Chauncey's station was at Sackett's Harbor. 

Perry and his brother reached Sackett's Harbor on 
the third of March. There was noise in the air of 
an attack by the British, and Perry was detained 
with Chauncey until the sixteenth of March. On the 
twenty-fourth he was at Buffalo. The next day he 
spent in the navy yard at Black Point, where were 
several vessels that he wanted to use on Lake Ene ; 
among them the Caledojtia, which had been captured 
from the British by Lieutenant Elliott. But the 
boats were bottled up there by the English Fort 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE in 

George, farther up the river, between them and the 
lake. 

' Leaving Buffalo on the twenty-sixth, he drove in a 
sleigh across the frozen lake to Erie. Erie lay at the 
end of a long bay behind Presque Isle. At the 
mouth of the bay was a bar which could not be 
crossed by vessels drawing more than six or seven 
feet. The bar made the bay a safe place in which 
to build ships, because the British fleet could not sail 
in and destroy them on the ways. In the same way, 
the bar would be just as difficult for the American 
boats to pass going out. But that was borrowing 
trouble ; the American boats were not yet finished. 

Erie was a dreary looking place when Lieutenant 
Oliver Perry and his brother Alexander reached it 
on the twenty-seventh of March. A few cabins and 
a house or two was all. Behind the place were wind- 
swept stretches of low hills, covered with scattered 
growth of oak and chestnut, with some pines here and 
there. A March wind howled through the place, 
swirling up the snow. 

Down by the beach was Perry's fleet. Three 
small gunboats were nearing completion ; Alexander, 
staring at them through the cold, could see that they 
would soon be boats. But the two brigs on which 
the Americans must place their greatest reliance were 
nothing but two long timbers of thick wood bristling 
with the stubby beginnings of ribs. For the rest, the 
fleet was still growing in the forests on the surround- 
ing knolls. 



112 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Lieutenant Perry found Noah Brown. Noah 
Brown was a shipwright from New York. He was 
in charge of the building of the fleet. He was 
standing on the Iceel of one of the brigs, one out- 
stretched hand resting against the stem, consulting 
with a carpenter, when the two approached. Only 
a few men were at work, and they did not seem to 
be accomplishing much. There were great dis- 
ordered piles of timbers of all sorts and sizes lying 
about. Nearer the woods some men were sawing 
away at felled trees. The sound of chopping came 
from the hills. 

" It's Lieutenant Perry ? " said Brown, holding out 
a mittened paw. 

" Mr. Brown, you are doing well," replied the 
young officer, shaking hands, and glancing around 
at the work under way. 

Brown stiffened and brightened in pride. " Fairly 
well, lieutenant," he admitted. " Especially when 
you think as how all this here timber was growing in 
the ground not so far back in point of time. Last 
fall, I might say." 

" You are doing very well," returned Lieutenant 
Perry, taking in the entire view with his eyes. " Have 
you heard anything of the enemy ? Have they tried 
to disturb you ? " 

Mr. Brown stated that they had not been bothered 
by the British. 

"You are all ready for them, I suppose," Perry 
went on. 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 113 

" By that you mean — what? " asked Brown. 

" You are ready to defend the ship-yard from an 
attack." 

Mr. Brown shook his head. "That's not my 
line," he said. " I'm not in the fighting line, my- 
self. That's for the likes of you to do." 

"We'll do it, then," returned Perry, good-na- 
turedly. " You have some cannon that we could 
mount, of course. I shall prepare a defense of the 
place." 

" Cannon ! " exclaimed Brown. " Why, lieutenant, 
we haven't so much as a dozen muskets hereabouts, 
excepting what the people of the town and country 
have of their own." 

Perry turned a look of quick surprise on him. 
" You don't mean that they have set you to work on 
a fleet of ships and have not made any provision 
against the British coming in and destroying the 
work?" 

" That's what I say, and that's what I mean. Lieu- 
tenant Perry." 

" Are there any men living here?" 

"Some." 

Perry thought for a moment. " What have you 
here in the way of rigging and stores, and so forth, 
Mr. Brown ? " he enquired. 

" Not a rope yarn, sir," returned the shipwright. 

" Is there any on the way?" 

Brown spread his hands. " There may be some- 
thing started from Pittsburg," he ventured. " They'd 



114 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

better be about it, too," he went on. " Give me 
time, and I might make rope and sails out of nothin' 
as I've made the craft themselves," 

" How long will it take to get things from Pitts- 
burg, provided they have started?" 

Mr. Brown made another gesture with his arms. 
" Lieutenant," he said, " it's five hundred mile from 
here to Pittsburg. You could pick your road by the 
wagons you'll find stuck in the mud between here 
and there. The weather is coming on soft now 
pretty soon, and when the snow begins to go you 
won't know whether it'll be easier to sail our craft to 
Pittsburg for their outfit or to get here with wagons ; 
that's what I'm sayin', lieutenant. We haven't so 
much as a marlinspike, let alone cannon ; and we've 
got to get sails, ropes, cannon, muskets, powder and 
balls, and all the rest over that five hundred mile of 
mud before we can have a fleet ; and that's sayin' 
truth. But that isn't my part. I'm here to build 
the ships, and build them I will, if they lie and rot 
on the ways afterward." 

Perry smiled, for all that a cloud of trouble passed 
over his face. " That's right, Brown," he said. 
"You build the ships, and I'll see that they don't 
rot on the ways." 

" I rather think you will," said Mr. Brown, after a 
long look into the eyes of the young officer. "" I 
rather think you will, lieutenant." 

Lieutenant Perry walked off with a look of de- 
cision in his eyes. That night fifty men from the 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 115 

neighborhood had been enrolled as militia for the 
defense of the Erie ship-yard. One man was on his 
way to Pittsburg with a request to the navy agent 
there to hurry up a party of shipwrights who were 
on the way from Philadelphia. Sailing-master Dob- 
bins was cutting off across the ice toward Buffalo to 
bring back forty men, with muskets and powder, 
and, if the ice would hold, with some cannon. That 
was the beginning of Perry's victory of Lake 
Erie. 

And the days that followed were just as much a 
part of the last triumph as the one particular bit of 
cool heroism that lifted the final eventful day to a 
height in history that, like a mountain peak, does 
not seem to grow less as we pass from it down the 
grove of time. There were trees to be cut from the 
forests and sawed into timbers for the ships ; there 
were all the many furnishings of war vessels to be 
brought from Pittsburg ; there were stores to be col- 
lected, and men to be gathered for the work of build- 
ing the ships, and of manning them after they had 
been built. 

Perry, even tempered, good-humored, full of spirit 
and determination, always thinking of the right 
thing to do and doing it, threw a force into the task 
that gradually brought it to completion. He never 
tired ; he never grew discouraged ; he constantly 
heartened every one about him. Sometimes the 
oak and the chestnut wood that was standing in the 
tree in the morning was pegged to the ribs of the 



ii6 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

brigs by night. Alexander Perry scurried through 
the country collecting all manner of iron scraps from 
farmers and roadside blacksmiths to eke out the 
scanty supply of that metal. The country was 
combed for blacksmiths. Perry himself made a trip 
to Pittsburg to hurry things along. 

While the work was progressing word came that 
Chauncey was going to attack Fort George. Perry 
hastened to join him. If Fort George could be 
taken, the vessels bottled up at Black Point might 
be brought down to Erie. Of course, they might 
fall into the hands of the British while on the way 
from Buffalo, but the chance was worth taking. 

Perry had difficulty in getting to Buffalo, but he 
arrived there at last, in time to take part in the cap- 
ture of the fort. It took him more than two weeks 
to get back to Erie with the boats. He was a fort- 
night in dragging them up the river from Black 
Point to Buffalo. Oxen, sailors, and two hundred 
soldiers laid their shoulders to the ropes. 

The trip from Buffalo to Erie was exciting. The 
British fleet was watching for them. But Perry 
reached his port all right. When he got there he 
found the two brigs and three gunboats in the 
water. Noah Brown had prepared a little surprise 
for him by launching them. 

The brigs were launched while the country was 
still echoing with the heroism of James Lawrence, 
who had died on the Chesapeake after a gallant fight 
against the Shatinon, in the previous April. In 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 117 

honor of him one of the brigs was called the Lawrence. 
The other was christened Niagara. 

It was then late in May. By the sixth of June the 
boats were ready for a fight ; but there was no one 
to fight them. There were not men enough to fully 
man one of the brigs alone. One-fifth of those at 
Erie were sick. Perry himself was ill. A lake fever, 
laying hold of the young lieutenant when he was 
worn out with work and worry, had dragged him to 
the edge of a serious illness and threatened to topple 
him over. 

He would not be toppled. His work was only be* 
ginning. He must get men. The British fleet un- 
der Barclay was sailing up and down the lake ; 
Harrison's army was threatened with defeat, if not 
destruction, as long as the English controlled the 
lake. Barclay was only waiting for the completion 
of another vessel which would give him a force 
nearly equal to what Perry could muster, now that 
he had the five vessels from Black Rock. Every- 
thing pointed to the need for haste. 

The weeks that followed were the most trying 
through which Lieutenant Perry passed. He bat- 
tered Chauncey and the Secretary of the Navy for 
men. Chauncey kept the best of the men that were 
sent forward from the States, and passed on to Perry 
remnants and scraps. Perry complained. Chaun- 
cey replied in sarcastic vein. Perry was hurt, and 
wanted to be assigned to another station. The Sec- 
retary of the Navy prevailed on him to remain at 



ii8 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Erie. Men continued to come in driblets. Now 
and then the British fleet showed up beyond the bar. 

Perry watched Barclay closely. He could not 
cross the bar as long as the Englishman was near. 
It was going to be necessary to lift the two brigs 
over with floats. While they were being lifted, they 
would be helpless against the enemy. If Barclay 
should attack during the operation, there was a 
chance that all the work since March would come to 
nothing ; to less than nothing. For, if Barclay held 
control of the lake, Harrison's army would be in 
great danger, and the northwest would be lost to the 
United States. 

Barclay had been off and on the bar for a week or 
more, when one day Alexander Perry came running 
to his brother and told him the British fleet had 
vanished. Although he was sick with his fever. 
Lieutenant Perry set to work at once. The gunboats 
crossed easily enough ; but the brigs drew nine feet of 
water, and there were just four feet on the bar that 
day. 

Noah Brown had made a couple of large floats to 
fit the brigs. One of the brigs, the Lawrence, was 
brought to the bar. The guns were whipped out to 
lighten her. Three of them were mounted ashore. 
The floats were veered alongside, filled with water, 
and sunk to the bottom. Timbers were placed 
through the ports of the brig, resting on the top of 
the sunken floats. Then the water was pumped out. 
As the floats arose, they lifted the brig. At least, 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 119 

they were supposed to. As a matter of fact, they 
only half Hfted her. The sick man was busy from the 
morning of August second until the evening of August 
fourth, without sleep or rest, before the Lawre7tce 
was in deep water outside. The Niagara, the other 
of the brigs, was brought over more easily on the 
fifth. 

When Barclay showed up he found the entire 
American fleet ready for sea. His new vessel had 
not joined him, and he put about and made for 
Maiden, on the north shore of the lake, followed by 
Perry. 

Perry was still destitute of men, and he had not 
one officer of experience, although he had been on 
the station five months, and had been asking for men 
and officers all that time. His right hand man was 
a sailing-master, Taylor. 

In a few days Lieutenant Jesse D. Elliott arrived, 
bringing with him several officers and eighty men. 
Perry's ships still needed many more, but the young 
lieutenant was hopeless of getting them, and set out 
up the lake on the twelfth of August with what he 
had. He entered Put-in-Bay, where he was brought 
down with a violent attack of the fever that had been 
haggling him for a long time. He was ill for several 
days. 

While he was ill, General Harrison sent one hun- 
dred soldiers to help out the fleet. Perry got on deck 
again on September first, still weak and suffering, and 
started for Maiden. Although Barclay had been 



I20 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

joined by the Detroit, he would not come out and 
fight, beUeving that the American force was still 
greater than his ; as, in fact, it was. So Perry went 
back to Put-in-Bay to wait. 

At the entrance of Put-in-Bay there is a high rock 
rising from the lake, at the edge of an island. Perry 
spent much of his time on the top of this rock, look- 
ing for the British fleet. He was infornaed that Gen- 
eral Proctor, the English military officer, was getting 
hungry, and wanted Barclay to sail down to Long 
Point and bring up provisions for the army. He 
therefore expected any moment to see the white sails 
of the enemy sliding across the breast of the lake. 

The rock is still called Perry's Lookout. 

It was sunrise on the morning of September lo, 1813. 
There had been a rain early in the morning, and a 
wavering mist hung over the lake. No one was on 
the rock ; it was too early in the day. But there was 
a man on the lookout of each of the brigs. 

Now and then the faint breeze from the southwest 
tore the mist apart, flinging ribbons of it into the 
air, opening vistas through it for a time, or spread- 
ing it in broad sheets close to the surface of the 
water. 

Alexander Perry, midshipman on the Laivrence, 
which was his brother's flag-ship, was on deck early. 
He had come out when it was still raining, and had 
watched the first breaking of the dawn in the east. 
He was walking restlessly up and down the deck, 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 121 

waiting- for his brother to arise. Oliver had been 
feeling very bad the night before, suffering from his 
■lake fever, and the younger Perry was worried about 
him. 

Suddenly the man on the lookout sang out : 
"Sail ho!" 

" Where away ? " shouted Alexander. 

" Bearing northwest, hull down ; a number of sail, 
sir, looking like the fleet of the enemy, sir," came 
from the lookout. 

The sail were invisible from the deck, because of 
the mist, which was just then hanging low on the 
water. Alexander did not stop to see for himself 
from the rigging, but made off as fast as his legs 
could take him to report to Oliver. 

" I have the honor, sir, to report that the enemy is 
in sight, bearing northwest," he said. They were 
not brothers then ; they were officers on the same 
ship merely. 

Lieutenant Perry had been lying in his berth with 
staring eyes and a beating headache. His limbs 
had refused to respond to his will to arise, and he 
had made up his mind to spend a part of the day, at 
least, in bed ; for the fever was on him. The word 
brought by his midshipman brought him to his feet 
in a leap. He forgot his beating head ; he forgot 
the fever that was rasping his skin. Dressing hur- 
riedly, he went on deck, ordered sail made, and set 
signals for the fleet to follow into action. His day 
had come. 



122 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The little fleet that sailed out of Put-in-Bay that 
morning in 1813 consisted of the two brigs, theLaze/- 
rence and the Niagara, that had been built at Erie, 
the brig Caledofiia, captured by Lieutenant Elliott and 
brought from Black Rock, the schooner gunboats 
Arielf Scorpion^ and Porcupine^ that had been built with 
the brigs at Erie, and the Somers, T/gress and Trippe^ 
brought with the Caledonia from Black Rock. Two 
stout brigs in all, one other brig, and six schooners, 
armed indifferently. Opposed to them the British 
had two ships, the Detroit and the Queen Charlotte^ 
of about equal strength with the Lawrence and the 
Niagara, one vessel, the Himter, which was not a 
match for the Caledonia, and three schooners. The 
British had the advantage in long range guns, but 
not in number of pieces or weight of metal. 

The night before Perry had called all the officers 
together on board the Lazcrence and given them in- 
structions for the engagement which he expected 
soon to take place. The instructions were in writ- 
ing. They told the officers the order of battle, and 
assigned to each ship the enemy's vessel that that 
ship was to take care of in the coming fight. The 
Niagara was to handle the Queen Charlotte, and the 
Lazvrence the Detroit, which was Barclay's flag-ship. 
Two schooners, the Scorpioti and the Ariel, were to 
proceed ahead of the line of battle to support the 
Lazvrence. The Caledofiia was to follow the Lazv- 
rence and the Niagara the Caledonia. Behind them 
the schooners were to range. Each vessel was or- 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 123 

dered to keep half a cable length from the one ahead 
of it. But as a final instruction, and one to govern 
all situations, Perry told his officers, in the words of 
Admiral Nelson, " If you lay your enemy close along- 
side, you cannot be out of your place." 

Put-in-Bay is among islands that range, in a gen- 
eral way, northwest and southeast. The wind was 
southwest, and light. Perry wanted to get to the 
windward of the enemy ; that was always an advan- 
tage in a sailing ship fight. For that purpose he 
tried to beat out between the islands, but the wind 
was too light. He gave the order to wear ship and 
pass to the leeward of the islands. 

" You will engage your enemy from to leeward, 
sir," suggested Sailing-master Taylor. 

" To windward or to leeward, they shall fight to- 
day," rejoined Lieutenant Perry, compressing his 
lips. 

The hours that followed were trying hours for him. 
The fever racked him. It was like something gnaw- 
ing at all the joints of his body, and his head swam 
in pain. By sheer force of will he kept it under, and 
stood up for the fight that was to come. 

Going into his cabin, he came back with a bunch 
of blue bunting hanging over his arm. He called 
the crew, and spread out the bunting. It was a flag, 
bearing on it, painted in white, the words with which 
James Lawrence died : " Don't Give Up the Ship." 
He had shown it to the officers in his cabin the night 
before, when he called them in for their orders. 



124 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

" Shall I put it up ? " he asked his men on the flag- 
ship. 

Their answer was a cheer, and the flag went to 
the maintopgallantmast head. 

The mists vanished, and the day turned clear and 
warm ; a beautiful day of the late summer. The lake 
sparkled under the gentle breeze that puffed across 
it ; the wooded shores of the islands brought their 
green to mingle with the lighter green of the sur- 
rounding water. Above bent a sky of perfect blue. 
And white on the breast of the running waters of the 
lake rode the ships of the two fleets. 

Alexander Perry followed his brother up and 
down the deck. Lieutenant Perry encouraged his 
men. They were a motley lot. Some of them were 
good sailors and fighting men ; some of them 
had been on the Constitution, and some had 
come with Perry from Newport. Others were farm 
lads or soldiers ; little more than boys, many of them. 
There were a number of negroes. But since he had 
brought them together Lieutenant Perry had been 
training them in the manual of fighting, until now 
they knew what was expected of them. And the 
men loved the young fellow that had taken control 
of them. 

By good luck, as they were beating up toward 
the enemy, sailing full and by, the wind hauled 
to the southwest, giving them a fair breeze. It was 
still sluggish, but favorable. 

The British fleet, ranged in a long line across the 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 125 

water, its sails gleaming in the sunlight, was a beauti- 
ful sight as the American squadron approached. 
Middy Perry, standing on the forecastle, could see 
the black guns thrust out of the ports and the men 
crawling about the vessels. Standing there he heard 
the blast of a bugle on the Detroit calling the crew 
to quarters. His heart bounded ; the fight was 
almost on. It was not long before there was a puff 
of smoke from the sides of the Detroit and a ball 
came bounding over the waves, too short in flight to 
strike the Lawrence. Soon there was another shot, 
and this one tore through the bulwarks. Alexander 
Perry returned to his brother's side on the quarter- 
deck. 

The guns on the Lawrence^ with the exception of 
two long twelves, were thirty-two pound carronades, 
a good weapon at close range but harmless at a 
distance. For that reason Lieutenant Perry did not 
reply to the fire, but bore in, setting a signal to the fleet 
to close, and passing word back with the trumpet. 

The American line was approaching at a slight 
angle, and the Latvrence was the first to come close 
to the enemy, the two schooners in advance being a 
little to windward of the flag-ship. By the time she 
was within two hundred and fifty yards, which is 
rather more than the length of a town square, she 
was receiving the fire of the Hunter and the Detroit, 
and it was necessary for her to stop and answer it. 
There she stopped, and there she fought as savage a 
fight as any ship ever fought. 



126 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

With the first discharge from the guns of the Z^ze/- 
7'ence^ it seemed to Perry that his head had been 
split, so intense was the pain. But in the heat and 
excitement of battle he forgot the pain, and forgot 
his illness, excepting when a shivering wave of heat 
rushed up and down his back, and his eyes swam 
for a moment now and then. 

Shot were tearing across the decks of the Lawrence, 
mowing down men, crunching through the bulwarks, 
snapping the rigging, chewing at the masts. The 
men at the guns returned the fire without flinching. 
The air was full of slivers that whirred over side, or 
hummed like great tops across the decks. The 
shrill shrieks of the wounded pierced the huge noise 
of firing cannon. 

" The Queen Charlotte \% drawing up, sir," reported 
Alexander to Lieutenant Perry. Oliver turned from 
an inspection of the Detroit through his glass to look 
at the Queen Charlotte. She was slowly drawing 
ahead of the Hunter, and swinging into a position 
where her fire would half rake the Lawrence. 
Lieutenant Perry turned swiftly toward the Niagara, 
which should have been alongside of the Queen 
Charlotte. The Niagara was behind the Caledonia, 
which was a slow sailer, pounding away at intervals 
with her long twelves. Her topsail was aback ; she 
was clearly not making any effort to get intothe 
thick of the fight for the relief of the flag-ship. 

•'What's the matter with the Niagara? Why 
don't the Niagara come up ? " men on the deck were 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 127 

saying to each other, noticing the advance of the 
Queen Charlotte, which should have been kept busy- 
by Lieutenant Elliott. 

It did no good to enquire the reason. The im- 
portant thing for the present was that the Queen 
Charlotte was turning her guns at closer range on 
the Lawrence, already the target for two vessels, and 
that she must stand them off alone. Not quite alone ; 
the two gunboats that had preceded were barking 
and spitting, ignored and unmolested by the fire of 
the British fleet ; and the Caledonia, at a distance, 
was throwing her long shot into the Queen Charlotte. 

The men on the Laivrence soon felt the effect of 
the converging fire. They tumbled over white, like 
corn in a popper. Dead and wounded were lying 
about the deck so thick in places that the powder 
monkeys, serving the guns, had to hop among the 
bodies or step on them. Perry, looking at the 
wounded as they lay on the deck waiting to be taken 
to the cockpit for the surgeon's care, met their eyes 
gazing at him, to read in his face how the battle went. 

A shot, entering a port, cleaned away from a gun 
every man but one. That one looked at Perry, 
pleading with his eyes for more men to serve the 
gun. Perry shouted down to the cockpit : " How 
many men have you assisting? " 

" Six," answered the surgeon. 

" Send one of them on deck." He was added to 
others who came from a gun that had been dis- 
mounted, and the crew was renewed. 



128 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Lieutenant Yarnall came to the quarter-deck. He 
had a bandana bound around his neck, and another 
around his head. Each stopped a bleeding wound. 
The man was dressed in a sailor's suit, with no sign 
of office on him. He asked for officers. Perry 
spared him one. 

Presently he was back again. A sliver had pierced 
his nose, which was frightfully swollen. Clotting 
blood stuck to his face here and there. " I am out 
of officers," he said, again. 

Perry had no more to give him. 

Lieutenant Brook was standing by the side of the 
commander. A solid shot struck him on the hip, 
throwing him into the scupper. " Shoot me, shoot 
me!" he cried to Perry, in mortal pain, knowing 
that he would not live. He was carried below into 
the cockpit, where he would not permit the surgeons 
to attend to him, knowing it would be a waste of time. 

The brig was shallow. The cockpit was above 
the water line. Solid shot crashed through the walls 
of the vessel and churned their way across the room 
where the wounded were being tended by the 
surgeon, who had now lost all of his six assistants to 
the deck. 

Dulany Forrest, midshipman, standing on the 
quarter-deck talking with Perry as they both watched 
the fight, was struck in the breast by a grape-shot 
that had come through the bulwarks, struck the 
mast, and glanced. The blow knocked him over. 
Perry stepped to him and lifted his head. He saw 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 129 

no blood on the lad's shirt. In a moment Forrest 
raised himself to his feet and looked around. The 
grape-shot that had hit him was lying on the plank- 
ing. He picked it up. " I guess that is mine for a 
relic," he said, and thrust it into his pocket. 

One by one the guns were being swept clear of 
their crews, or silenced. Six, four, two were left 
fighting the weight of three opposed vessels. Out 
of the crew only one-fifth were unhurt ; one out of 
every five men had been killed or wounded. Every 
brace and bowline was shot away ; the Lawrence 
was unmanageable. She could only stand and 
answer feebly with what guns she had left, while the 
enemy chewed her to pieces ; reduced her to a wreck. 
Where was the Niagara ? What had happened to 
Elliott ? 

A shot, striking the bulwarks, stripped ofi a 
hammock. Hammocks were fastened along the 
bulwarks before the engagement to hold slivers. 
This one, snatched from its fastenings, was yanked 
through the air and flung against Alexander Perry, 
knocking him from his feet. Oliver turned just in 
time to see his brother fall. 

For the first time in the engagement his spirits 
fell. He rushed to the side of the young middy, but 
before he could raise him, Alexander scrambled to 
his feet and looked at his commanding ofificer with a 
sheepish grin. 

Two o'clock, and after. For more than two hours 
the Lawrence had been at the apex of the fire from 



I30 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

three of the enemy's vessels. She was a wreck. Un- 
manageable, with only one gun in commission, four- 
fifths of her men gone, and no officer left uninjured 
excepting Perry and his brother, she floated help- 
lessly in front of the destroying guns of the enemy. 
She had done damage, but the odds had been too 
heavy. 

Lieutenant Perry and Lieutenant Yarnall were 
discussing the situation. They would not strike ; 
they did not think of that as an alternative ; they 
were trying to figure out some stratagem. 

" There comes the Nmgara,'^ cried Alexander. 

They looked, and saw the brig, that had been out 
of the fight until now, slowly creeping up to the 
windward of the Caledonia, making for the head of 
the British line but in a course parallel with it. 
Neither Perry nor Yarnall could understand the 
manoeuvre. As they looked, the light of an idea 
came into the fever-ridden eyes of the commander. 
His glance shot along the davits. There was one 
boat left. 

" I am going aboard the Niagara,'' he said. " I 
shall transfer my flag." 

He walked to the one gun that was left, helped 
the broken crew to load it ; trained it, and fired. 

Five minutes later a boat, rowed by all that was 
left unharmed of the crew of the Lawrence, shot out 
from the brig's side and made direct for the Niagara, 
passing a half mile away. In the stern stood a tall 
figure in a lieutenant's uniform. Over one shoulder 




P-, 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 131 

was draped a flag of blue bunting. On the blue 
were painted white letters ; one could not make out 
what they were as they lay folded. Beside the 
standing man, tugging at his coat-tails, was Alexander 
Perry, trying to make his big brother sit down in 
the boat. 

And with good reason, too. It was dangerous 
enough to venture out on clear water in that little 
craft, with three or four of the enemy's vessels 
pounding broadsides at it, and the whole musketry 
of the marines pelting the lake with bullets. But 
for the man to stand, when all the future of the war 
in those parts depended on his getting safely to the 
Niagara^ was foolhardy and a wicked risk. Prob- 
ably it was a touch of the fever. 

They had not gone far when two of the men 
ceased rowing, and would not begin again until the 
lieutenant sat down. The strike brought him to 
reason. He sat, and the boat went on. 

In these days the craft would not have much of a 
chance with the accurate guns and gunnery ; but in 
those times all weapons were smooth bore, and could 
not shoot as straight as the modern rifles. Only one 
ball struck. It passed through one side of the boat, 
thumping a hole near the water line. Perry stripped 
off his lieutenant's coat and stuffed it into the hole to 
keep out the water. 

Lieutenant Elliott, meeting Perry as he climbed 
aboard, was dumbfounded. Probably he wished that 
he had come up sooner with the Niagara to the 



132 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

relief of the Laivreiice, " What is the result on 
board your brig?" he blurted. The result was 
plainly to be seen in the shattered bulwarks, the 
swinging rope ends of rigging, the flopping sails, 
and the dead peace that brooded over her death- 
strewn decks. 

" All cut to pieces," answered Perry. He looked 
alow and aloft, and saw that the Niagara was not 
injured. Hardly a shot had taken effect, and those 
that had come aboard had done no damage. The 
crew was fresh and whole. 

The flag of the commodore, with its motto : 
" Don't give up the ship," went to the masthead, 
and Perry assumed command of the Niagara. His 
plans were made. 

" Shall I bring up the schooners, sir?" said Elliott. 
The schooners were trailing a mile or two astern, 
sluggards in the light breeze that was blowing. By 
signal and trumpet they had been ordered to come 
up as rapidly as they could, and they were doing so, 
using sweeps to help, but both Perry and Elliott felt 
the embarrassment of the latter's presence on the 
Niagara, and were glad to make use of the excuse. 
Elliott leaped into the boat that had brought Perry 
from the Lazvrence, and started for the schooners. 

Less than a half mile away were the Detroit, the 
Quee7t Charlotte, and the Hunter, at the head of the 
British line. They had been heavily handled by 
the Lawrence ; their sides were splintered by her 
shot ; many of their guns were useless ; their decks 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 133 

were soppy with blood, and their crews were ex- 
hausted. Perry, on a fresh ship of twenty guns, 
with a crew that had been held in leash, enjoying 
the weather gauge on his enemy, had one chance. 
He saw it, and took it. 

The topsail was set aback. The Niagara hung 
in the water, hove to for an instant, the helm was 
thrown over, the sails shifted, the wind filled them, 
and she payed off, heading directly for the two 
largest of the enemy : the flag-ship Detroit and the 
Queen Charlotte. 

Down upon them she swept, with her guns double- 
shotted, the flag of the sick man of the lakes, with 
its white lettered motto, rollicking in the breeze. 
Alexander hopped up and down twice on the quar- 
ter-deck, midshipman though he was. His big 
brother was going to win the fight, and he 
knew it. 

Close and closer she drew across the sparkling 
water. The Lady Prevost, her rudder broken, had 
drifted out of the line and passed ahead of the De- 
troit and the Queen Charlotte. Perry drove the 
Niagara between the Lady Prevost and the others. 
The Detroit, trying to veer to bring her broadside 
to bear, fouled the Queen Charlotte, and the two 
were helpless for a time. Perry held his fire. 

Now he was among the British vessels, hanging 
on their line of battle. He shortened sail in an in- 
stant. The Niagara paused like a falcon about to 
strike. There was a lurching heave of her decks, a 



134 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

shiver that ran away and died through her timbers, 
a bursting roar of all her guns. 

To the left the Lady Prevost staggered under the 
shock of the port broadside. To the right a shriek 
arose from the Detroit of many mingled voices. 

The shriek was the death cry of the fleet. 

One of the men struck down on the Detroit was 
Captain Barclay. He had lost an arm at Trafalgar, 
Now the other was nearly torn from his body. He 
was carried below, and the fate of the fleet rested in 
less expert hands. Finnis, captain of the Queen 
Charlotte, who had been in command of the fleet 
before Barclay, was already dead. 

There was no one left on the decks of the Lady 
Prevost but the captain. A bullet had struck him in 
the face, and driven him crazy with pain. The rest 
of the crew had run below after the first discharge 
from the broadside of the Niagara. Perry ordered 
the marines to cease firing at the Lady Prevost. 

The Detroit and Queen Charlotte were clear now, 
and fought back weakly, with what little strength 
they had left. There were gallant men on board. 
But Perry, in his fresh vessel, hung on their flanks, 
biting deep with each leaping charge of his guns. 
And the schooners, brought up by Lieutenant 
Elliott, came within range and poured canister and 
grape into the almost helpless enemy. The end had 
come. One after another the British vessels struck ; 
the Qtieen Charlotte first, then the Detroit, and the 
Lady Prevost. Two gunboats tried to get away, but 



THE SICK MAN OF THE LAKE 135 

were overhauled and captured before they could 
reach Maiden. 

And what of the Lawrence all this time ? She was 
a drifting wreck, slowly passing out of the range of 
fire. Lieutenant Yarnall, left in charge by Perry 
when he took to the Niagara, had hauled down the 
flag as soon as his superior ofBcer reached the deck 
of the Niagara, but no one had time to come aboard 
from the British to make her a prize. 

Wounded men lay about her decks, dragging 
themselves to where they could see the end of the 
fight, faintly cheering from time to time as some 
stroke fatal to the British became apparent. And 
when the British flags came down, one by one, the 
ghost of a rousing cheer lifted above the groans of 
the men under the surgeon's knife in the cockpit be- 
low, and the sighs of the dying, to waft the depart- 
ing souls on their contented way to the next world. 

Great was to be the reward of those men. For 
when the English officers came to surrender. Perry 
would not receive them on any other planks than 
those of the gallant Laivrence. There, among the 
heaps of the dead, and surrounded by wounded and 
dying, who still looked into his face with the same 
loving trustfulness that he had seen there all through 
the deadly fight, he received the surrender of the 
officers of the British fleet. 

When all was done ; when the sun had sunk be- 
hind the western waves and the future of the north- 
west had been assured, Oliver Hazard Perry sank 



136 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

in his berth on the brig and slept throughout the 
night as deeply and as peacefully as any of those 
near him whose sleep was to be forever. 

Not far from him lay his brother, Alexander, mid- 
shipman in the American navy, and that night the 
proudest young lad in all the world. 



CHAPTER VI 
HOW THE WIND PLAYED TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 

A HALF dozen American bluejackets were sitting 
about a rough table under the shade of an olive tree 
in the patio of an old wine-shop in Valparaiso, Chili. 
They were members of the crew of the United States 
frigate Essex, Captain David Porter. The night be- 
fore there had been merrymaking aboard the frigate ; 
a party given by the officers to the officials of 
Valparaiso. These men had come ashore to con- 
tinue the festivities on their own score. Half the 
crew was ashore on similar business. The bottle 
was passing frequently ; talk was loud and laughter 
high. 

It was early in February, 1814. The United States 
had been at war with England for nearly two years. 
The frigates of the United States had met the ships 
of Old England in more than one bloody encounter, 
and had come off victorious. The Essex had done 
her part ; she had fought savagely and well. Now 
she was in the Chilean port with the Essex Jimior 
after a long cruise in the Pacific in which she had 
played havoc with British shipping, capturing more 
than a dozen British vessels and frightening English 
commerce from the entire sea. 

News of her had been carried to England. It had 



138 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

roused high resentment. That one little frigate 
should command so large a territory and drive from 
so vast a sea the ships of the mistress of all the seas, 
as England proudly proclaimed herself to be, was 
more than their pride could endure. The English 
Admiralty had despatched a fleet to remove the 
troublesome frigate. 

Information that England had sent a fleet had 
come to Valparaiso, and rumors were running that 
some of the enemy were not far off. The talk of the 
men sitting about the table in the little wine-shop 
was of their present situation, and how Captain 
Porter would meet it. 

"Ye cannot tell what he will do," declared one of 
the men, " for he thinks of things that no other man 
would think of. But this ye may know ; in some 
way, and that the best way, he will fight." 

" Aye, that he will," answered another. " He's 
the fightin'est man I ever see. Why, I remem- 
ber " 

" Come, Nick, what do you remember ? " inter- 
rupted a third, laughing ; for it was well known that 
Nick Haydock remembered many things that never 
had happened. 

** He will not only fight because he is brave," went 
on Joel Hawes, the one who had spoken first, " but 
he will fight because he hates the British with a 
lovely hatred, borrowed of the time when he was 
pressed aboard their ships of war and beaten by the 
hands of their coxswains." 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 139 

"Was he so?" exclaimed another sailor, Harry 
Hotchkiss by name, who was little more than a lad. 

" Aye, twice over, and he will never feel that the 
score is even," answered Hawes. 

" I remember," began Nick again, but got no 
farther. 

" When was he impressed, then ? " piped up the 
youthful sailor, turning to Hawes ; a grizzled old salt 
with a broad beard and tattoo marks thick on arms 
and chest. He had been captain of a long eighteen 
on the Essex's forecastle for two cruises. 

" When he was but a lad of sixteen or thereabouts," 
Joel answered. " He had already had one narrow 
squeeze from it before he was taken. 'Twasin 1796, 
the first time when he got away. He was cruising 
in the West Indies with his father, who was a fight- 
ing man before him, as was his grandfather as well. 
They fell in with a British press gang, and there was 
a rough and tumble fight, young Porter taking his 
full share in it. In the end they drove oflf the 
Britishers, but on the next voyage he was taken, to- 
gether with the whole crew. 

" But a tough nut to crack he proved to be. He 
would not serve, no matter what they might do. 
They put him in irons, and kept him on bread and 
water, but his spirits only rose the higher. Then on 
a day they brought him on deck for a flogging, to 
see if they could not cure him of his stubbornness, but 
he jumped overboard and swam to a Danish vessel 
that was in the harbor, where he was let alone." 



I40 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

" I might tell ye more o' that," said one of the group, 
a sandy-haired Scotchman who had said nothing 
until now. 

" Come, now, Bissh', have ye a tongue, then ? " 
cried Nick, in banter. " 'T would be news enough to 
hear ye speak, my hearty." 

" 'T would be no so much as to hear ye hold your 
peace, mon," retorted the Scot. 

" Let's have the tale, then," they all cried, amid 
much mirth over the sally. 

" 'Tis but a wee bit o' a tale, but it shows the 
mettle o' the mon, nane the less," began Bissly. 
" 'Tis onl}'^ that I had a brither on board thet same 
ship when young Porter was brought forward to be 
flogged. The crew was standin' aboot, as is the 
fashion on such occasions, thet they might be 
properly impressed wi' the floggin', and the cox- 
swain stood with bared arms and stiff muscles, the 
cat-o'-nine-tails in his hand, ready to begin. They 
were leadin' the lad across the deck, and his head was 
high and there was fire in his eyes as he went, I may 
tell 'e. When he was in the midst of the deck, o' a 
sudden thought he dashed aside the men who held 
him and made a leap for a g^n-port, knockin' down 
twa fellows as he ran. It chanced that one o' the 
twa was me own brither, and I may say that he tried 
little enough to stop him, for he had a warm likin' 
for the lad. There was nothin' done to fetch him 
back again ; belike the British officers thought they 
had made g-ood riddance. But the fioggin' thet was 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 141 

to go to him was gi'en those who let him get free, 
among them my brither. 'Twas the first and the 
last he ever had. He often told me the whole tale, 
as I tell it ye, but with many more words, until a 
shot carried his soul to eternity." 

" Then what happened to him ? " prompted Hotch- 
kiss, for fear the yarns would cease to be spun. 

Joel took up the tale. " They would not molest 
him on board the Dane, where he made out to swim. 
The Danes took him with them to Europe, but when 
he was on the way home again the British laid hold 
on him once more, and this time they handled him 
rougher than the first But once more, by hook or 
by crook, he escaped and got back to the United 
States, in time to go aboard the Constellation and be 
in the fight with the Vengeance and the Insurgent^ 
in the war with France." 

" I remember " broke in Nick again. 

" Come, now, what do you remember ? " cried the 
second sailor. " The man must have it out, or he'll 
burst." 

" Aye, Nick, out with it," laughed Joel. 

" I remember the time we had with those same 
howling Frenchmen we took on the Insurgent'' he 
went on. " Thirteen of us were sent aboard from 
the Constellation to transfer the prisoners to her, the 
Insurgent being in a fair way to sink at any minute 
from the shot holes we had put in her. Lieutenant 
Rodgers was in command of us and there was my- 
self and little Davy Porter here, among others." 



142 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

'• Hurrah ! " shouted two or three of the tars, 
laughing at the way he had put it. 

" And 'twas not a wholly pleasant thing, either," 
went on Nick, paying no attention to their banter. 
" There we were, thirteen men in all " 

" That's countin' you and Middy Porter as one 
apiece, I take it," laughed Joel. 

" Thirteen men in all," repeated Nick. " As I 
was a-sayin', 'twas not a pleasant thing, thirteen 
men to the whole crew, but we were making the 
most of it and getting 'em off as fast as v;e could, 
when, as bad luck would have it, a hurricane blew 
up and drove us apart from the Constellation while 
there were still one hundred and seventy-three of the 
Frenchmen between decks ; which, as you may 
figure for yourself, was thirteen of them to one of us. 
I have seen storms at sea in my time, lads, but never 
have my eyes beheld such a blow as that there one 
was. Keel-haul me for a lubber, if the waves didn't 
run as high as those mountains over yonder," 
nodding his head in the direction of the Cordilleras, 
which were in view from where they sat. 

"That's a mere ripple of a wave," laughed the 
second sailor. 

" The wind was a-howlin' overhead, and the 
Frenchmen a-howlin' between decks, and the ship 
takin' water, havin' been ready to sink from the time 
we had left off firin' on her, and only thirteen of us 
to work ship, man the pumps, stand trick at the 
wheel, and keep the Frenchmen in order," he went 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 143 

on, ignoring the others. " But we were equal to it. 
They put me, with another man, as bein' the most 
reliable for the position, at the hatches, with muskets, 
and orders to shoot the first Frenchman that showed 
his head. The rest worked the ship. For two days 
and three nights, my hearties, we fought without a 
wink of sleep, and made our way through the father 
of all gales into the harbor of St. Kitts, where we 
found the Constellation^ never expecting to see us 
again." 

" And it so happens that all of that is true, every 
word of it," commented Joel, nodding his head at 
the others. 

" True as the compass ! " asserted Nick. 

" That puts me in mind of the time we had after 
we had taken the British corvette Alert, a year and 
more ago," put in the second sailor. " 'Twas on 
the first cruise of this same little Essex, and we were 
already shorthanded from putting prize crews into 
two prizes we had taken, when we tricked the Alert 
and brought down her colors with one round broad- 
side. We already had aboard some two hundred 
soldiers we had taken from a transport that we cap- 
tured " 

" Aye ! " exclaimed Joel. " The one we cut out 
of the fleet. 'Twas a rich joke, that." 

" What was that ? " asked young Hotchkiss. 

" I'll tell ye soon," said Joel, and the second sailor 
resumed his tale. 

"There was this mess of British between decks, 



144 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

and we were shorthanded, as I have told ye. 
'Twould have been a small matter for them to have 
risen and got the best of us, and Porter knew it well. 
One night when all was quiet young Midshipman 
Farragut, the same who is now on board " 

" Aye, aye," said Hotchkiss ; for Farragut was 
his own particular hero. 

" Midshipman Farragut was in his hammock 
when he saw the coxswain of the British captain's 
gig pacing up and down with a pistol in his hand, 
looking first this way and then that, out of the tail 
of his eye. Farragut knew at once that something 
was up, but how was he to get word to Captain 
Porter? The coxswain was watching him, and 
pretty soon came over and held a lantern in his face. 
Young Farragut was sleeping as sweet as a babe, 
for anything the fellow could see, so he went on 
with his pistol. 

" As soon as he was gone, little middy jumps out 
of his hammock and runs to the quarter-deck. 
' There's mutiny aboard, sir,' says he to the captain ; 
and he told what he had seen. Thereat Captain 
Porter runs to the break of the poop and bellows out 
' Fire ! ' like any bull, and the bluejackets alow and 
aloft came running to the deck, while the chaps 
below was so frightened at the thought of being 
drowned like rats that they forgot all about the 
mutiny." 

"Was there a fire?" asked Hotchkiss. 

" Not a spark nor a flame of it, my lad," returned 



TRICKS ON THE BSSBX 145 



the tar. " 'Twas an old trick of his, and 'tis yet, as 
you may have noticed more than once for yourself, 
to bellow fire and bring all hands to quarters in a 
jiffy, for fire drill. As soon as his men were to- 
gether, and before the mutineers had found out the 
trick. Captain Porter turned the men of his ship upon 
them and quickly put a stop to all their nonsense. 
And it was not long before they were all sent to St. 
Johns, Newfoundland, on the Aler^, as a cartel, so 
that danger was removed." 

" What about the troop-ship ? " asked Hotchkiss, 
turning to Joel. He never tired of hearing these old 
salts spin their yarns of the sea. 

" Well," Joel began, " 'twas on this same cruise, 
and a little before this, that we sighted seven vessels 
one night under convoy of a frigate. Anybody but 
Porter would have found that he had business some- 
wheres else just about that time, but not him. He 
brought down his topgallantmasts, so that his rig 
would not show so high, ran his guns inboard, closed 
the ports, slacked ofiF his running rigging to make it 
like that of a merchant ship, and otherwise made our 
good frigate look as much like a lubbery merchant- 
man as she could. Then he slipped in among them, 
not knowing precisely what he was going to do him- 
self, but ready for anything that might turn up. 

" The trick worked fine ; for a long time the 
blooming Britishers did not suspect that we were not 
one of their own vessels. At last one of the captains 
began to think that things looked queer, and started 



146 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

to make signals to the frigate. The old man ran 
alongside of her, opened his ports, stuck out his 
guns, and commanded the British captain to follow 
him out of the fleet, which he did, very peacefully, 
not wishing to be sent to the bottom. He had on 
board two hundred soldiers out of a thousand that 
the fleet was carrying from Barbadoes to Quebec. 
We would have returned for another haul, but it was 
too near dawn for that. 

" In the morning the old man ran in again, with 
his topgallantmasts set up, his rigging shipshape, 
and his guns out, the Essex looking the frigate that 
she was, and hove to off the bows of the convoy. 
The British we had aboard were very anxious for a 
fight, thinking their man could have handled us, and 
so were we, thinking he could not. But the coward 
drew off into the protection of the fleet, all of whom 
carried guns, and we had to put about without more 
prizes. But for simple audacity you cannot beat it ; 
going into a fleet of eight ships with one little frigate 
and cutting out a prize from under the noses of the 
other seven." 

" He beat it himself, though, that time the Shannon 
chased us," asserted Nick. " I remember it well." 

" Aye, that he did," Joel confirmed 

" I remember it well," went on Nick. " You 
would have thought that any man in a forty-two gun 
frigate would have showed a clean pair of heels if he 
got a chase from three of the enemy, two of them 
bigger and heavier than himself, but not so our Cap- 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 147 

tain Porter, bless him. He made off as though he 
was trying to get away until night came, and then 
he rigged out kedge anchors on his yard-arms, 
ready to drop them on the deck of the enemy, and 
went about on a tack, figuring to meet one of them. 
You see, it was this way," Nick explained, drawing 
a sketch of the manoeuvre on the table with his 
thumb nail. " We are all sailing free, with the wind 
on our larboard. They had the wind of us, but we 
were well ahead. After dark-fall, he went on the 
port tack, making about five or six knot, while the 
enemy, sailing free, came down at about eight. He 
had figured it all out that we would meet at a certain 
place where the two courses crossed, both of us bring- 
ing up there at the same time. As soon as ever we 
came alongside, which we could have done, for they 
never would have thought that it was the enemy ap- 
proaching them, he was going to let go his kedge 
anchors, grapple, and board, before the two others 
could come up. He calculated that he could take 
the ship and get her under way again before the rest 
of the squadron would know what he was fairly do- 
ing. And that's just what he would have done, too, 
if the English vessel had not changed her course 
unknown to him, and so missed us." 

The Scotchman Bissly, who had been looking out 
of the door of the shop behind which they were sit- 
ting while Nick told his story, arose to his feet when 
it was ended and said, mysteriously : " Me boys, 
there's mischief afoot ! " 



148 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The others turned to him quickly ; the times were 
full of possibilities. "What is it now?" they de- 
manded. 

" I have but now seen a mon that I ken well 
enough to know that he is up to some evil. I sailed 
with him once in a ship that he was mate of ; the 
same that is now in the harbor, and ye may have my 
grog for a week if he is not doing some trick on us." 

" Have done with riddles," cried Joel Hawes, with 
a sailor's oath. " Out with it." 

" Na, I dinna ken what it will be aboot, but I mean 
to have a look to see," Bissly returned, starting to 
leave. 

The lad Hotchkiss sprang up. " I'll go with you," 
he said, eager for adventure. 

** That ye may do, if you like," returned the Scot, 
*' but the rest had best bide here." 

Bissly left, accompanied by the young sailor. 

Those who stayed behind over the bottle had 
ceased to speculate on what had started the Scotch- 
man off, and were in the midst of tales of the time 
when David Porter, falling into the hands of the 
Tripolitans through the grounding of the frigate 
Philadelphia in the harbor of Tripoli during our war 
with that country, lay for nineteen months a prisoner 
in the Bashaw's palace, when the deep boom of a 
gun shook the still hot air and brought them all ±o 
their feet. 

They rushed to the water side and saw the Essex 
flying signals recalling her men from shore leave. 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 149 

They clambered into a boat, and were just making 
off, when Bissly and Hotchkiss came running down 
to the water's edge and hailed. The others put back 
for them and took them aboard. 

"What did you find out ? " Joel asked Bissly. 

"Twas as I thought," returned Bissly. "The 
rogue went into a boat and pulled out to sea. For 
my part, I guess well where he has gone. This gun 
from the Essex tells it all. The British fleet has 
come, and he went out to tell thet 'twas a good time 
to try to take the Essex, we being all ashore and 
more or less awash with the recent festivities." 

The Scotchman was right. The mate of an Eng- 
lish merchantman in the harbor, hearing of the ap- 
proach of a British man-of-war, and knowing that 
half the crew of the Essex were ashore in Valparaiso 
continuing the amusements of the evening before, 
had gone out in a little boat to meet the approaching 
frigate and notify the captain of her that the oppor- 
tunity was ripe for a quick attack on the American 
vessel. 

The man-of-war was the British frigate Phcebe, 
Captain Hillyar, accompanied by the sloop-of-war 
Cherub. They were the first to arrive of the fleet 
that had been reported as coming out to capture the 
Essex and rid the Pacific Ocean of the enemy that 
had plagued British shipping for so long. 

Porter had been informed of the approach of the 
two frigates by the Essex Junior, which was cruising 
outside. Under the laws between nations, when two 



I50 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

nations are at war the vessels of neither may be at- 
tacked by the vessels of the other when they are 
within three miles of the shore of a third country, or 
in any port belonging to the third country. That is 
what is meant by the neutrality of waters and of 
ports. Valparaiso, Chili, was a neutral port. 

But David Porter was not at all certain that the 
Englishman would respect the neutrality of the port 
of Valparaiso. Chili was a very young republic, and 
very weak, and would hardly be able to enforce re- 
spect from him for the neutrality of her ports. Porter 
was not going to take any chances. He at once 
fired a gun — the gun that the knot of sailors in the 
wine-shop had heard — and ran up signals recalling 
all his men from shore leave. While he was waiting 
for them to come aboard, he went about preparing 
a reception for the stranger, if he saw fit to attempt 
to make trouble. He cleared for action, called to 
quarters, stowed powder and shot about the decks 
ready for "quick use, and formed his boarders. 

Joel Hawes, Harry Hotchkiss, Nick Haydock, 
Bissly, and the others who had been with them in 
the wine-shop, were paddling across the harbor as 
fast as they could ; it was a crazy, cranky dugout 
they were in, and progress was slow and dangerous. 
If they had not already had much experience in 
similar craft since they had been cruising in the 
Pacific they would probably not have got very far in 
it, but they managed to paddle along without upset- 
ting, with that skill which an American so quickly 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 151 

learns whenever he turns his hand to something 
new. 

Other canoes were all about them, some making 
better headway than they, and some not going as 
fast. Here and there in the water bobbed the head 
of some sailor who had not stopped to find a boat, 
but had plunged in to swim out to his ship. There 
was shouting back and forth between the canoes, and 
an exchange of opinion of all Englishmen, and these 
in particular ; for by this time there was no doubt 
that the English ships were coming. 

"There they are now I " cried Harry Hotchkiss, 
who was paddling in the bow of the dugout. 

The others, looking up and following his gaze, 
saw two towering clouds of canvas bearing into the 
harbor under full press. A shout that was half a 
snarl rang over the water from the scurrying canoes, 
and the men in them doubled their efforts at the 
paddles. 

All doubt of the intention of the British frigate had 
disappeared when Joel's boat load reached the decks 
of the Essex. The Phoebe, the larger of the two, 
was bearing directly down upon them under a spread 
of canvas. She was already so close that the Amer- 
icans could see her men at their stations, clearly 
ready for a fight, and expecting one. 

The Essex was in a bustle of preparation. Ham- 
mocks were being lashed to the gunwales, to prevent 
as much as possible the flying splinters, the most 
deadly result of an enemy's shot ; some sailors were 



152 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

dousing the decks with water, to kill any stray pow- 
der that might be spilled ; others were sprinkling sand 
about the planking, and setting buckets of it here 
and there to be thrown on the decks when flowing 
blood should make them slippery. Powder mon- 
keys were fetching powder ; the marines were form- 
ing in the gangways ; down below in the cockpit 
the surgeons were laying out their instruments and 
bandages. 

As a last preparation Captain Porter ordered kedge 
anchors to be rigged ready for hauling to the yard- 
arms, where they could be dropped upon the deck 
of the enemy. That was a way they had when ves- 
sels came close together. If one wished to board 
the other, the kedge anchors were hauled to the 
yard-arms and let go on the enemy's deck. Then 
they were hauled in, the two vessels were grappled 
together, and the boarders would pour over bulwarks 
and through gun-ports armed with cutlasses, pikes, 
and pistols. 

Joel Hawes was captain of a long eighteen on the 
forecastle. Harry Hotchkiss was in his gun crew. 
Bissly was in the crew next to them. They went to 
their stations, stripping themselves to their waists so 
that they could move more freely, and so that, if they 
were struck by a splinter of musket ball, no cloth 
would be driven into their flesh. 

On came the Phcebe, drawing closer and closer. 
The men on the Essex hungered to let go at her as 
she slipped along, a half pistol-shot away. But the 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 153 

officers, pacing up and down behind the guns, held 
them back. Captain Porter would not break the 
law of nations. If the Englishman chose to do so, 
Porter was ready for him. If he had known what 
was going to happen within the next few weeks, he 
probably would not have been so scrupulous, and 
this would have been a different story. 

The Phoebe, driving on before the breeze, slid un- 
der the stern of the Essex, luffed up, and came on to 
her port bow, fifteen feet away. Joel Hawes shut his 
eyes ; the target was too tempting ; he was afraid to 
look at it for fear he would let go his gun and begin 
the trouble. 

Captain Hillyar was clearly surprised at the readi- 
ness of the American frigate. He had expected to 
find her half empty. He had expected to see what 
men she might have aboard lolling around her decks, 
after the manner of sailors in port. Instead, they 
were all at their guns, with matches ready. He 
changed his mind about rushing her. 

Climbing upon a gun of the quarter-deck section, 
he hailed Captain Porter, whom he had met in a 
friendly way in the Mediterranean, during the trouble 
between the United States and the Barbary powers 
ten years before. " Captain Hillyar's compliments 
to Captain Porter, and hopes he is well ! " said the 
Englishman, with studied politeness. 

" Very well, thank you," returned Porter, rather 
grimly, " but I hope you will not come too near for 
fear some accident might happen that would be dis- 



154 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

agreeable to you." He waved his trumpet, and the 
kedge anchors soared away to the yard-arms. 

Captain Hillyar was alarmed. The kind of a dis- 
agreeable accident that might happen to him was 
quite clear to the Englishman from the crowds of 
armed men aboard the Essex, ready to board, and 
at the guns with lighted matches, to say nothing of 
the kedge anchors dangling above his head. He 
braced back his yards in great haste, and called out 
to Porter : " If I do fall aboard of you, I beg to assure 
you that it will be purely accidental." There was a 
trace of anxiety in his tones. 

"Well, you have no business there," returned 
Porter. " If you touch a rope-yarn of this ship, I 
shall board instantly." He signaled Lieutenant 
Downes, commanding the Essex Junior, to be ready 
to repel the enemy. 

The American sailors were trembling with eager- 
ness to begin the fight. They had the English 
frigate at a deadly advantage ; she lay stern to un- 
der their broadsides ; they could have raked her from 
stern to stem, and taken her by boarding before the 
Cherub could come up. Low talk went along the 
lines of gunners ; they were like sprinters staring, 
straining at the starting line, waiting for the signal 
gun that sends them flying down the track. 

And they nearly heard the gun. The imagination 
of Nick Haydock, always active, was now overheated 
by the closeness of the British and the pleasures of 
the last two days. Gazing out at the line of English 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 155 

faces, which were plainly visible at the ports, he 
fancied that one of them was grinning and making 
grimaces at him. That he would stand from no John 
Bull. He picked up a gun. His eye ran along the 
barrel. He was about to pull the trigger, which 
would have hurled both ships into a storm of fighting 
and changed a bit of history when Lieutenant Cowel 
chanced to spy him. Before Nick could press the trig- 
ger, Cowel sent him sprawling with a blow of the fist. 

The Phosbe, threatened as she was, was manoeu- 
vering out of her delicate position with great skill. 
The men behind the guns of the Essex, watching her 
yards to see if they touched the rope-yarn, which 
would permit them to fight her, saw her long yards 
sweep over their decks, missing their own ropes by 
less than a fathom as she drifted astern, and saw her 
at last quite clear of them. A mutter of disappoint- 
ment went up from them as she drifted farther away, 
took the wind in her sails once more, paid off, and 
slipped down a half mile to leeward, where she 
anchored. 

" I could have bored a hole the length of her," 
growled Joel Hawes, giving the gun-carriage a knock 
with his heel in his disgust. 

Two days later Captain Hillyar met Captain 
Porter in the streets of Valparaiso. The Englishman 
thanked the American for his forbearance on the day 
the Phoebe arrived in port, and told him that since he 
had been so scrupulous to observe the neutrality of 



156 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

the port in trying circumstances, he himself would 
not consider it honorable to be less scrupulous in the 
matter. 

Nevertheless, Captain Porter did not have much 
faith in the man's good intentions. He was certain 
that the British officers had been ordered to take the 
Essex without risk, and he could not believe that 
they would let slip this chance, while he was cooped 
up in the harbor. He felt that it would only be a 
question of time until they would attempt to take 
him. He was informed, too, that more vessels were 
on the way. Surely, if the Phccbe and Cherub should 
be reinforced, they would not wait much longer on a 
formality of international law. 

Days slipped into weeks, and still the British ves- 
sels stood guard over him. Sometimes they an- 
chored close to the harbor entrance ; other times they 
cruised up and down off the harbor, but so close to 
it that he could not slip out. Captain Porter was 
certain that they were merely waiting for the arrival 
of the other British ships before descending upon 
him. He made up his mind that he would not let 
the Essex die like a rat in a trap. He would take 
the first opportunity to get out to sea ; or, if no chance 
came along, he would make one. 

He had already made a feint or two at getting 
past them, in which he had discovered two facts of 
importance. The Essex could outsail and outpoint 
either of the enemy's ships, and the Pha?be was faster 
than her companion. This meant much to him. In 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 157 

the first place, it meant that he would stand a better 
chance to get out than he would have had if either 
of the others were faster than the Essex. And it 
meant that if the two should follow, which he made 
no doubt they would, he could run ahead until the 
Phoebe had left her consort far behind, and then he 
could turn and fall on Captain Hillyar and fight it 
out with him alone. 

It was now six weeks since the British vessels had 
arrived at Valparaiso. Captain Porter decided that 
he would wait no longer for an opportunity to slip 
through. Hillyar was too wary. He would set a 
day in which to make the trial. He would make the 
trial the next afternoon. No, he would try it this 
afternoon ; he would not get into the habit of the 
Spanish American, who puts everything off until to- 
morrow. " Mafiana, mafiana," they say, as they 
squat in the sun by the side of the road. 

Now the wind played its first trick on the Essex. 
Captain Porter had no sooner decided to start im- 
mediately on his attempt to get out, than a savage 
draught came down out of the Cordilleras and blew a 
squall. The wind was so strong that it was not a 
good time to carry out the plan. Captain Porter 
would have to wait, after all. 

But here the wind played a second trick. As if it 
knew what it was doing, and meant some mischief, 
it immediately commenced to blow harder than ever. 
It was not long until it had put such a strain on 
the port anchor of the frigate that the cable parted. 



158 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

One anchor would not hold the vessel, and she be- 
gan to drive out to sea, dragging her starboard an- 
chor over the hard bottom. Porter made up his 
mind at once to make the most of the accident, and 
pass out to sea. With this end in view, he strained 
on all the canvas the Essex could carry in the wind 
and stood for the harbor entrance. 

Everything was going nicely, and there was good 
prospect of his getting clear of the British frigates, 
when the wind played trick number three. Crouch- 
ing behind Point of Angels until the Essex came 
along, a great squall rushed out upon the spread of 
canvas and tore at it with its shrill fingers. The 
good old Essex heeled over under the sudden blast 
until her guns were almost under. Men were sent 
aloft to take in sail. They were busy at the task 
when the wind brought trick number three to a cli- 
max by wrenching the maintopmast off of the Essex 
just above the top and carrying it, yards and all, into 
the sea. All the men who were on the yard at the 
time furling sail were drowned. 

Crippled b}'^ the loss of mast and sails, Porter gave 
up trying to get past the British ships outside, and 
turned back to make his anchorage. But the wind 
was ready with trick number four ; it hauled just 
enough to make it hard work for the Essex to win 
back. The vessel did not behave well with her main- 
topmast gone, and all the sails above it, and the 
wreckage of them dragging overside in the water 
made her cranky to steer. The best Porter could do 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 159 

was to run into a little bay on the west side of the 
harbor and anchor there close to shore, three-quarters 
of a mile in the lee of a Chilean battery. 

Porter had not much hope that the Englishmen 
would leave him alone after his attempt to get out, 
and he had not much hope that the Chilean battery 
would try to enforce the principle of neutrality 
against the British frigate and sloop-of-war, but he 
was going to give them a chance to do it. 

The Essex was made ready for immediate defense. 
Porter knew that the fight would be desperate. When 
the Essex was last in her home port, before she set 
out on this cruise, the authorities at Washington had 
seen fit to take twenty long twelve-pounders away 
from her battery of twenty-six. The twenty long 
guns had been replaced by sixteen thirty-two pound 
carronades. It may seem at first that a gun throw- 
ing a ball weighing thirty-two pounds could do 
more damage than a gun throwing a ball weighing 
only twelve pounds, and in a measure that is true. 
But the gun throwing the twelve-pound shot is a 
longer gun than the other, and can throw its shot 
farther. Carronades had to be fought at close range. 
They could not reach an enemy that was armed with 
long guns, and chose to stand of? and use them. 
And that was precisely what the English boats were 
armed with. They had thirty-six long twelves 
against the six that had been left on the Essex by 
the authorities at Washington. 

Porter had objected to the change in his guns 



i6o BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

when it was made, but the objection had had no 
weight with the men at home, who knew all about 
sea fighting from pictures they had seen and books 
they had read. Now the American officer wished 
for his long twelves as he never wished for anything 
in his life. He knew what the enemy carried, and 
he knew that the enemy could stand off and beat 
him to a pulp with the long guns. He would be 
helpless ; he could not run in and close with his car- 
ronades, because his maintopmast was gone, and 
all above it. The third trick the wind had played 
on him had been one too many. But this was not 
the time to mourn about things that had already 
happened, and the Essex made ready to meet the 
enemy and to do the best she could. 

" We'll have our stomach full of fighting this day, 
I'm thinkin'," said an Irish gunner in Joel Hawes's 
gun crew. 

Joel looked at him savagely, thinking the man 
was already flinching ; but the fellow's face was as 
calm and serene as a mill-pond in June. He had 
merely stated a fact, because it was a fact. They all 
knew that it was so ; they all knew the odds, and 
that they would have a stomach full of fighting be- 
fore they were through, and they all took it as calmly 
as Joel's Irishman. 

The two British ships came swooping down under 
full canvas on the helpless cripple, their men at their 
guns, all flags flying in the breeze. The wind was 
playing no tricks with them. And little they cared 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX i6i 

for the laws of nations 1 They had been sent out to 
exterminate this pest of the western sea, and they 
were going to do it now, before it had another 
chance to get away. If they could not do it one 
way, they would do it another. 

Barnewell, the sailing-master of the Essex, was 
trying to get a hawser around the anchor chain that 
was holding the Essex, so that they might drag her 
around until her broadside was aimed in the direc- 
tion whence the British ships were driving on her. 
Sailors call such a line a "spring-line." Barne- 
well was trying to get a " spring-line " on the cable, 
Nick Haydock was helping him. Much depended 
on that spring- line. If they could not get it fast in 
time, the two attacking vessels could take a position 
raking the Essex, and she would be helpless to reply 
to them. David Farragut, midshipman, twelve 
years old, was watching them. 

A puf? of smoke leaped from the bows of the 
Phoebe and was jerked away by the breeze. The 
breeze had done its tricks now — some of them — and 
was laughing over the water, waiting its chance for 
the fifth and final trick it meant to play on the Amer- 
ican frigate. The dull boom of the gun came over 
the waves, and a shot thudded against the ribs of 
the American vessel. The fight was on. 

The Phoebe took a position under the stern of the 
Essex ; not an American gun could be brought to 
bear on her. It was just what Porter expected ; it 
was what the spring-line that Barnewell was work- 



i62 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 



ing with was intended to prevent. "Boom! Boom!" 
A dozen spurts of smoke from the Phoebe, the shriek 
of hurtling shot, and their thumps against the sides 
of the frigate. 

" Curse 'em for cowards ! " cried the men at the 
broadside guns of the Essex, beside themselves with 
wrath, trying to twist their pieces around to bear. 
Men were falling everywhere, and their companions 
dragged them below to the cockpit, and hurried on 
deck again to their useless guns, where they could 
do nothing but wait their turn to be shot down. It 
was maddening ! 

Joel Hawes was having better luck. The Cherub^ 
stealing to a position off the Essex" s bows, and open- 
ing with her long guns, had fallen under his range. 
He crouched over the breech of his long twelve, ran 
his eye through the sights, stepped back, nodded, 
and the gun leaped stiff legged into the air with a 
sharp roar. 

The first answer had been made to the fire of the 
enemy. A cheer went up from the throats of the 
American sailors. They were relieved ; they could 
strike back a little, at least. Three guns on the bows 
could be brought to bear on the Cherub; they 
barked sharp and fast. 

Some one came to the captain on the quarter-deck, 
saluted, and reported that the spring on the cable 
was all fast. It was David Farragut, midshipman. 
Captain Porter gave the order to haul in on it. The 
men laid to ; the spring tautened, swung dripping in 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 163 

a narrowing zone, and snapped, parted by a chance 
shot from the enemy. No doubt the wind, full of its 
tricks, swerved that shot just enough to bring it 
against the slender strand that meant a measure of 
safety to the Essex. Who can tell ? But we do not 
count that against the wind ; we are not certain the 
wind did that. We only know that the wind was 
guilty of other things that day, and worse. 

The Phoebe was firing rapidly. Her shot rattled 
through the sides of the Essex and swept across her 
decks. Men were falling faster and faster. It was 
deadly to stand idle and be shot down, unable to 
strike back. Only on the bows was there firing. 
There Joel and his men, and the two other long 
twelves were pounding away at the Cherub. 

Captain Porter, on the quarter-deck, alert, calm, 
waited until the spring could be got on the cable 
again. 

A shot entered the port of Joel's gun. It struck 
the piece a glancing blow and smashed into the head 
of the Irish gunner. He had had his fill of fighting 
soon. Harry Hotchkiss stepped forward with a 
charge of powder in his arms, to place it in the muz- 
zle of the gun. 

Midshipman Farragut was standing by the side of 
Captain Porter on the quarter-deck. Some one came 
and reported a gunner skulking. Captain Porter 
turned to the middy, a lad of twelve. " Do your 
duty, sir," he said. 

" Aye, aye, sir ! " returned the lad of twelve, 



i64 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

and went off, a pistol in his hand, to shoot the 
skulker. 

A cheer from the forward guns pierced the muf- 
fled " Boom ! Boom 1 " from the British ships. The 
Cherub was drawing away. The bows forward had 
found her with their iron fists, and were punching 
hard. Joel, crouched for a final shot, arose, and 
waved his cap, leading another cheer. 

A second spring was made fast to the cable ; a sec- 
ond time the men hauled in, and a second time a 
shot, swerved, perhaps, by the wind, cut it away as 
the vessel was beginning to veer around to the pull, 
so that her guns could bear on the enemy. 

Now both the Phoebe and the Cherub were astern 
of the American, pouring iron into her without re- 
tort. The decks were horrible. Dead lay in heaps. 
Blood sloshed in the scuppers, gritty with the sand 
that had been sprinkled on deck to keep them from 
becoming slippery. The Essex was taking water 
through numerous holes between wind and wave. 
The cockpit was filled with wounded. Their shrieks 
and curses, their groans and sobs, were the only 
sounds of war on the stricken vessel. You forget 
that part of it when you are fighting yourself, but if 
you are standing idle, waiting for your turn to come, 
you cannot forget it. It is to you the only real part 
of war at such a time. 

Captain Porter, on the quarter-deck, gave a com- 
mand. ' Men hurried forward and dragged three 
long twelves the length of the ship, and thrust their 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 165 

muzzles through the stern ports. In a moment the 
defenders felt the thrilling shiver of their recoil run 
through the decks of the vessel. They cheered 
again. If only their carronades would carry, there 
was still hope for them ! Hope ? There was cer- 
tainty if only their carronades would carry ! 

A third spring was got out and bent to the cable, 
and a third time it was shot away. 

But the fight was not so bad now. The British 
fire slackened a bit. Not much ; it was hard to be 
sure that it slackened at all, but it seemed to those 
who were waiting that the " Boom I Boom ! " did 
not come so rapidly. 

A half hour passed. Surely, the British fire was 
slacking off. There could be no doubt now. 

Another cheer, louder, more exultant than the 
others, jang from the deck of the Essex. It was so 
exultant that it was answered from the cockpit by a 
feeble few lying wounded there. They did not know 
what the cheer was for, but they answered it, because 
it sounded like the cheer of victory. 

And it was, for the two English vessels were draw- 
ing away. They had had enough. The three guns 
in the after port of the Essex bit too deeply for them. 

The belief in victory was short-lived. The British 
frigates, going down the wind a short distance, wore, 
and came back, firing as they came. That was their 
answer to the cheer that had gone up from the Essex. 
They had heard the note of triumph in it, far down 
the wind, and had turned back to set the Americans 



i66 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

right in the matter. Having showed them that they 
were still fighting, and intended to keep on fighting, 
they drew off a second time to repair rigging, which 
was in bad shape. The Americans could see the 
British sailors squirreling about in the rigging. 

It was not long before they came on again, crowd- 
ing down on their helpless victim. This time they 
both took position off the port quarter of the Essex, 
away from the guns that had nibbled at their ribs so 
uncomfortably. They hauled up at long range, the 
Phoebe anchoring, and the Cherub standing off and 
on firing her bow guns. 

Not one gun on the Essex would bear. Captain 
Porter, watching everything, gave another order. 
Sailors ran here and there, laying hold of ropes and 
halliards. " Shiver my timbers, if the old man isn't 
going to go after them ! " cried Nick, joyfully, as he 
grasped the foretopsail weather sheet with a half 
dozen other sailors and began to pull away on it. 

The rope hung for a moment, and then came run- 
ning through the pulleys, offering no resistance to 
their pulling. A loose, raveled end of it whirled to the 
deck and twisted itself still. It had been shot away. 

Every bit of the running rigging had been shot 
away, excepting the flying jib halliard. They soon 
found that out, trying to get sail on her. They used 
the one rope they had, and hauled up the flying jib. 
They loosed the foretopsail, and it came flapping 
down. But there was neither tack nor sheet for 
either sail, and no time to reave and bend new ones. 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 167 

The sails, not sheeted home, flapped in the wind ; 
in the wind that had been playing tricks, and was 
ready to play more, perhaps, if need be. 

Slowly, like a great bird wounded to death, the 
Essex drifted down on the two adversaries. It w^as 
a last desperate chance, and Captain Porter was the 
man to take that chance. No doubt there were a 
dozen, a score of American captains who would have 
taken the same desperate chance, but Porter hap- 
pened to be the one called on this time. 

If he could bring his carronades into play, he hoped 
to be able to drive off the two, crippled as he was. 
His men thought the same. They did not look at 
the heaps of dead and mangled about them ; they 
did not heed the puddles of blood that their footsteps 
tracked about the guns ; they did not hear the 
screams of pain from the cockpit, where the surgeons 
had no rest. They only thought of the coming 
chance to get the enemy under those carronades. 

At last the moment arrived ; they were up with the 
British ships ; their carronades could bear. All along 
her sides the Essex leaped into fire, hurling iron into 
her adversaries. For a space she shook with the 
rapid firing of her guns. 

But only for a space. The Cherub, feeling the 
drubbing, drew away. The Phoebe followed her. 
They would take no chances ; they would worry 
their adversary to death at long range. Like two 
terriers, they would throw their teeth into her ribs 
and be off before she could turn to bite back. 



i68 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The Americans shouted angrily after them ; they 
had no weapons they could use except their tongues. 
They called their brothers of England cowards, using 
many adjectives. They were not cowards. They 
were only trying to win the fight, which, after all, is 
the object of all lighting. 

Joel Hawes stood at his gun, idle once more. 
Three times his crew had been swept to death by 
the shots of the enemy. Only he remained unhurt. 
He looked along the decks of the Essex. They were 
running with blood. Bodies, torn by splinters, 
mangled by shots, lay in heaps. The wounded, 
under the hands of the surgeons in the cockpit, 
shouted out words of cheer and encouragement be- 
tween their groans. The cockpit had been the scene 
of many horrors that day. Some of the shots of the 
enemy had reached it, killing the wounded as the doc- 
tors fought to save their lives. 

They were drifting back to their anchorage in the 
lee of the Chilean battery. Captain Porter was de- 
termined that the Essex should not fall into the 
hands of the British ; he was using what sail he had 
to drive her on the beach, where he intended to burn 
her, and escape with what was left of the crevA\ 

She was making way slowly but surely toward 
the shore. In a short time she would be close 
enough ; they could fire her and swim to the land. 
The British ships were following, but at a distance. 
They could not come up in time. 

Then the wind played its fifth and last trick. 



TRICKS ON THE ESSEX 169 

Waiting until the hopes of the Americans were 
high ; waiting until there were only a few fathoms 
more for the Essex to float over, it suddenly veered 
and blew straight in the face of the drifting frigate. 
The remnants of the sails flapped back ; her head- 
way stopped, and she commenced to slide slowly 
backward toward the oncoming enemy. 

A small boat M'as coming out of the harbor from 
the Essex Junior. The Essex Junior had been or- 
dered to keep out of the fight. It was only an old 
whaling ship fixed over to do service against mer- 
chantmen ; it could not fight with a frigate. But 
Lieutenant Downes could stand it no longer ; he was 
coming aboard to see what he could do. 

Lieutenant Downes came aboard. Captain Porter 
called a conference of the officers. Only one re- 
sponded, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur McKnight. 
Only one could. The others were killed. Lieuten- 
ant Wilmer had been knocked into the water by a 
splinter and drowned. Lieutenant Cowell had died 
of a desperate wound ; his leg had been shot off. 
His life might have been saved by prompt attention, 
but when the surgeon was going to leave the work 
he was doing to attend to him, Lieutenant Cowell 
would not permit it. " No, doctor, none of that," 
he said. " Fair play's a jewel. One man's life is 
as dear as another's ; I would not cheat any poor 
fellow out of his turn." Barnewell, sailing-master, 
had fainted from his wounds and loss of blood. 

The three officers talked on the quarter-deck in 



lyo BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

low tones ; the British ships were drawing near ; al- 
ready they were beginning to fire again. They de- 
cided that one chance remained. They would get 
out the sheet-anchor. Perhaps the wind, which had 
veered, as has been told, would drive away the 
enemy and give the Essex a chance to breathe. 
Porter ordered the anchor over, and Lieutenant 
Downes left for the Essex Junior, carrying off some 
of the wounded, and leaving three sailors he had 
brought with him, who insisted on dying with the 
old ship. The British fired on the small boat as it 
put back to the Essex Junior, but did not hit it. 

The storm of iron was sweeping over them again. 
Acting Lieutenant Odenheimer, superintending the 
catting of the sheet-anchor, was struck by a huge, 
whirling splinter and knocked into the bay. 

The anchor splashed into the water ; the cable 
rumbled through the hawser holes. The Essex 
checked her sternway, and swung around. The 
carronades were ranging into line again. Hope re- 
vived. And then, just as a murderous storm of shot 
broke over the decks of the frigate from the oncom- 
ing enemy, it died again. The hawser parted, and 
the Essex began to drift once more upon the British 
frigates, unmanageable, helpless. 

Hawes heard the voice of Bissly, the Scotchman, 
at the next gun. He turned from watching the 
Phoebe, working carefully up toward them. Bissly's 
face was as white as the breast of a gull, and as free 
from expression. He was standing on one leg, 



TRICKS ON THE BSSBX 171 

leaning against the gun-carriage. The stump of the 
other leg hung in the air. A knotted handkerchief 
had been twisted about it to stop the flow, but the 
blood ran in a stream from where the man stood. 
" I left my own country and adopted the United 
States to fight for her," Bissly said. " I hope I have 
this day proved myself worthy of the country of my 
adoption. I am no longer of any use to her, or to 
you, so good-bye." Before a hand could stop him 
he hopped to the gun-port, twisted himself through 
it, and fell into the water. 

Joel turned away with a lump in his throat and a 
moist eye. His glance fell on the face of young 
Hotchkiss, pierced by the sliver that had killed him. 
The look with which he had died was still on his 
features. Joel clenched his hands and held a cry of 
rage in his throat. It was butchery ; it was not a 
fair fight to stand off like that and slaughter, with- 
out giving a chance for a return. 

Then, with a great smothered roar, the entire ship 
lurched and leaped, as though she would leave the 
water. Great volumes of smoke poured from the 
hatchways. Men rushed on deck. A magazine, 
with what little powder was left in it, had blown up. 
And they were still drifting helplessly on the enemy, 
who still fired into them without ceasing. 

Captain Porter, cool, calm, infinitely sad, looked 
down the hatches, where he could see the flames 
flickering in the wake of the explosion, and glanced 
at the approaching ships of the enemy, still firing 



172 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

into them. " Those who wish to leave the ship may 
jump overboard and swim to shore," he said, and 
the word was passed. 

Although the flames were beginning to tongue 
through the hatches, although the British were upon 
them, although the frigate was shot to pieces in the 
body, and her sailing gear was a mass of tangled 
wreckage, only a few left the ship. They would 
rather die at their posts. 

But David Porter would not ask the last sacrifice 
of those that were left. Already fifty-eight had been 
killed and sixty-six wounded, out of the crew of two 
hundred and fifty-five. Sadly the great heart gave 
up, and surrendered the ship. 

And the wind, which had played such tricks on 
the frigate Essex, carried the last wisp of smoke 
from the silent guns out upon the great sea where 
the craft had won undying glory. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE CHEESE-BOX 

The night of March 8, 1862, was a heavy night 
at Washington, and throughout the Northern states. 
That day a fighting monster of a ship had come out 
of the EHzabeth River and destroyed two of the 
Union ships in Hampton Roads, and no one could 
think of anything to prevent her returning in the 
morning to destroy the rest. She was an invincible 
monster, with great guns protected by a thick hide 
of iron, and a ram that tore huge holes in the sides 
of the wooden ships that were opposed to her. No 
one could see what would prevent her from making 
away with the Union fleet ; the entire North expected 
that she would be able to steam up to Washington, 
lay the city in ashes, and devastate the Atlantic sea- 
board. It was a night of hopelessness and of panic. 

The monster that had struck such terror through 
the North was the old steam frigate Merrimac which 
had been burned when the Federal government 
abandoned and destroyed the navy-yard at Ports- 
mouth, in Virginia, early in the war. The Confed- 
erates had taken what was left of her, cut her down 
to the berth deck, and built a casemate over her of 
heavy timber, faced with four inches of iron. They 



174 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

had filled her with guns, and fitted her with a beak 
of iron with which to ram her enemies. They had 
called her the Virginia, and we will speak of her by 
that name, although she is usually known in history 
by her former name, the Merrimac. 

On the eighth of March she had steamed out from 
the Elizabeth Rivers and descended upon the fleet. 
She had sunk the frigate Cumbcrlmid of thirty guns, 
which had gone down fighting, and set fire to the 
Congress, of forty guns, after a hopelessly one-sided 
contest. The wooden ships had been powerless 
against her ; their shot had dribbled off her iron 
sides, doing no damage. 

There was only one slim hope that her career of 
destruction might be arrested. The hope was faint ; 
pinned on a trifle. For a long time a man named 
John Ericsson, an engineer and inventor, had dreamed 
a dream about a war vessel that should be able to 
cope w4th anything afloat. This man was a Dane. 
He had got his first idea from watching log rafts in 
Swedish lakes. These rafts had a little hut built on 
them for the raft-man. Ericsson's dream was to build 
a boat like a raft, and place on top of it a round 
iron tower to carry guns. He had submitted his 
plans in 1854 to Napoleon III, Emperor of France, 
hoping the French would use the craft against Rus- 
sia, whom Ericsson hated wdth a racial hatred. But 
Napoleon had only laughed, and sent the visionary 
inventor about his Danish business. 

When the Civil War had been under way for a 



THE CHEESE-BOX 175 

few months, and the Federal government learned 
that the Confederates were remodeling the old Mer- 
rimac into a new-fashioned ironclad, the Navy De- 
partment had bestirred itself to match the monster 
with another, and had asked for designs. Among 
the designs submitted was one by Ericsson for a 
tower on a raft such as he had long dreamed of. 

His plan was laughed at. One of the three mem- 
bers of the naval board that was to pass on the 
designs submitted sent word that Ericsson might 
"take the little thing home and worship it, as it 
would not be idolatry, because it was in the image of 
nothing in the heaven above, or on the earth be- 
neath, or in the waters under the earth." But in 
sheer desperation the board finally consented to have 
a boat built on Ericsson's design for trial, with the 
understanding that if it were not a success the money 
would be paid back to the United States. 

That was enough for the inventor, and three 
months later the vessel was completed. Above her 
hull was built an overhanging platform, heavily 
armored with iron, so designed that only a foot of it 
extended above the water. On top of the platform 
was a round tower twenty feet wide and nine high, 
made of eight thicknesses of one-inch iron bolted to- 
gether. The tower, or turret, was made to revolve 
by machinery, sliding about on a copper bearing. 
It had two gun-ports, and two eleven-inch guns. 
The tower was intended to be turned from the enemy 
while the guns, which were muzzle loaders, were 



176 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 



drawn in and loaded, and turned back to bring the 
guns to bear when they were ready to be fired. 
Forward the tower was a conning tower, extending 
four feet above the deck, made of heavy iron, with 
slits in it through which a view could be obtained of 
the enemy. Here was the wheel, and here the post 
of the commander ; he had to fight his ship through 
those narrow slits. 

The engines, the galley, and living quarters, every 
part of the ship but the two towers and the smoke- 
stack, were in the hull, under the level of the water. 
The officers and crew had no light but lamps, and no 
air excepting what was brought to them by fans. 
All the gases from the fires under the boilers, all the 
smells of the engine and the galley, and all the foul 
air from the breathing men cooped up in the box, 
had to be cleaned out by the fans. It was a dismal 
and dangerous hole, one at which sailors shuddered. 
There was much doubt as to whether, in a seaway, 
the overhanging platform would not be torn away 
from the hull ; whether the craft was not top-heavy, 
and would not capsize ; whether, in fact, she would 
float at all. When the makers launched her they 
were so uncertain whether she would float that they 
built floats of wood to catch under her stern as it 
rushed down the ways. But she did float, and she 
was ready for a trial trip on the nineteenth of Febru- 
ary. On the fourth of March her guns were mounted 
and a board of naval officers reported favorably on 
her. 



THE CHEESE-BOX 177 

At the request of Mr. Ericsson the new craft was 
called The Monitor ; for he believed she would be a 
monitor to the Confederates and to the powers in 
Europe that were looking on ; that she would warn 
and caution and advise them to respect the powers 
and resources of the United States of America. It 
was to this little craft, untried, laughed at by many, 
doubted by most, that the sole hope of the country 
turned. 

There had been mad haste at the last to make her 
ready, when it was learned that the Virginia was 
Hearing completion ; and on the sixth of March, two 
days before the Confederate ironclad appeared and 
spread havoc and alarm through the Union fleet, the 
Monitor, in tow of the tug Seth Low, steamed out 
upon the boisterous waters of the Atlantic. 

They were not less than heroes who went with her 
that day ! Never before had craft like that ventured 
across the relentless waves of the high seas. In their 
memories was the knowledge of the wicked power of 
the boisterous water, and in their ears the echo of 
the doubts that had been raised against the Monitor. 
They could not be sure whether the worst that had 
been said might not be too true. Huddled into the 
black hole, cramped, helpless to save themselves 
from possible disaster, they placed their lives on the 
hazard, and waited. 

It was not long before their fears were aroused. 
They ran into a wind and sea ; the waves broke over 
the deck, nearly awash, and swirled angrily about 



178 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

the round turret. Water poured in torrents through 
the seam between turret and deck, which had been 
calked for the trip, but from which the hemp calking 
was torn by the yanking waves. Waves broke over 
the stack and wet the fires, nearly putting them out. 
The men had forgotten to stop the hawse holes, 
and solid water rushed in through them. The belts 
on the ventilating fans became wet, and slipped, 
shutting off the supply of air from the men and the 
engine fires. There was not enough steam to work 
the steam pumps, and the hand pumps were not 
strong enough to lift the water to the top of the tur- 
ret, which was the only place it could be discharged. 
Gas from the engine accumulated ; two men, trying 
to check it, were made unconscious, and saved only 
at great risk to their rescuers. Danger of founder- 
ing or of suffocating was intense, when the tug 
managed to drag the floundering craft inshore to 
smoother water. Luckily the wind was offshore. 
Once again before they reached Cape Henry they 
went through a rough sea that nearly foundered 
them. It was not until the afternoon of the eighth 
that they passed the Cape to safety. As they passed 
they heard the guns of the Virgmia and her helpless 
victims, and knew they were none too soon. The 
glare of the burning Congress was in the sky as they 
steamed toward Hampton Roads. 

The Monitor had been ordered to proceed to the 
defense of Washington, but the commander of the 
fleet exceeded his orders and held her to contest the 



THE CHEESE-BOX 179 

waters with the invincible enemy. She passed into 
the lee of the Minnesota^ aground and expecting the 
attack of the Virginia in the morning. Exhausted 
though they were by the terrible trip from New 
York, the men spent the night in preparation for 
the battle, knowing that all the hope of the navy 
hung on their untried craft. They could not guess 
what another day would bring them, but they did not 
flinch from the trial. And the government at Wash- 
ington, knowing that the Mojiitor had arrived at the 
fleet, breathed more easily ; it is human to hope 
when there is a chance for hope. 

The mists of morning, breaking slowly from the 
shore, revealed the enemy, black and forbidding, 
against the background of Virginia. Black smoke 
presently began to pour from her funnels, and she 
was observed to swing slowly into the tide and make 
toward the Minnesota. At a distance of a mile she 
threw a shot toward the stricken ship which she 
had come forth to destroy. And then the men 
aboard her saw the little round box slip from the 
shelter of the larger craft and steal across toward 
them. The " Yankee cheese-box on a raft " had come 
to give them battle. 

Think for a minute of those men in the cheese-box. 
Their boat was a complete experiment. There had 
never been another like her in war. And this one 
had never met even the weakest foe by way of trial. 
Her guns had never been fired from her turrets, and 
her turret had never received the impact of a blow. 



i8o BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

They were going forth to grapple with a vessel of 
known strength ; one that had proved herself su- 
perior to anything afloat. Perhaps the first shot 
would come tearing through and catch them all 
cooped up in the iron box from which there was no 
escape. Or perhaps it would unsettle the turret so 
that it could not be stirred. And they could not 
even see their opponent. Nevertheless they went 
forth without flinching. 

At a distance of half a mile, the Virginia fired her 
bow gun, but the shot went wild. One thing, at 
least, was in the favor of the men in the turret ; the 
cheese-box was hard to hit. Slowly the two drew 
together. The massy turret squealed on its bear- 
ings ; the huge guns bore on the iron sides of the 
enemy. They belched forth, leaping in their car- 
riages. The floor of the turret jerked under the re- 
coil, but there was only a muffled roar of the gun-fire 
in the ears of the men inside. 

In the next instant the Virginia let go her star- 
board broadside ; the supreme moment of test had 
come. The shells rattled against the iron of the tur- 
ret. The men inside looked about them with eager 
glances. All was well ; the shots had not come 
through, and the blows against the iron plating had 
done no harm to those within. Then the turret be- 
gan to turn, and they knew that its bearings w^re 
not jammed. They took heart, reloading their 
guns with great good cheer. 

It took them seven or eight minutes to load and 




^ 



THE CHEESE-BOX i8i 

fire. Those inside saw nothing of their enemy ex- 
cept when the turret swung its ports toward her, 
when they caught a glimpse of her huge sides. In 
that glimpse they had to fire. Not knowing at what 
moment the other ship might appear in view through 
the ports, they had to wait with ready guns for the 
instant, and then discharge their weapons. It was 
shooting on the fly. 

Peeking through the ports in these glimpses, they 
saw with sinking heart that their shots were doing lit- 
tle or no damage. The tremendous resisting strength 
of the other threw ofT the eleven-inch shot as easily 
as it had thrown ofT the ten-inch shot the day before. 
Nevertheless they kept on firing, taking courage 
from the fact that their own craft was still exempt 
from injury. 

Lieutenant Worden, the commander, in the pilot 
house, peeking through the slits, perceived that he 
was doing no harm, and manoeuvered to ram his 
enemy. This way and that the two jockeyed, the 
pigmy and the giant, seeking for advantage, and 
firing as they swung about. Presently, with a rush, 
the tiny craft hurled herself toward the stern of the 
other, hoping to disable the propeller or steering 
gear. The blow missed the mark by two feet, and 
the Monitor slid off. But in the instant of impact an 
eleven-inch shot from her turret found the walls of 
the Virginia, broke through the plates, and mashed 
the wood, barely stopping short of entering the case- 
mate. The blow threw all the Confederate gunners 



182 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

from their guns, and the concussion started their 
noses and ears to bleeding. 

The difficulty in aiming at the Virginia increased 
with every shot. Broad white marks had been made 
on the stationary floor on which the turret swung to 
show which was the bow and which the stern of the ves- 
sel, but these had become covered with soot and grime 
until they were invisible. Those inside could only 
guess which way they were going, and where the 
enemy bore ; it did them no good now to learn that she 
was off the port bow, or the starboard quarter. 
Through all the arc of the turret's swing they had to 
watch for the enemy, with nothing to hint to them 
when it might wheel into view. And there was 
great danger of their mistaking their own pilot house 
in the smoke ; danger that an excited gunner might 
throw one of the huge shot into it, and win the fight 
for the enemy. At the same time, they grew dizzy 
and confused ; the fumes of their guns were choking 
them. But they kept on. 

Finding that she could accomplish nothing against 
the cheese-box, the Virginia bore off and started for 
the Miimesota, aground on the shoals at the edge 
of the channel. Three times she sent shot and shell 
into the wooden hull of the helpless adversary, doing 
terrible damage ; but after the third the little Monitor, 
dogging at her heels, caught up with her and made 
her turn. 

Maddened by the nagging attack. Lieutenant 
Jones, commander of the Virginia, tried to ram. The 



THE CHEESE-BOX 183 

bow of the Virginia struck the flat platform, sHd up 
upon it, and sheered ofT, pushing the Monitor away. 
The only harm done was to the bottom of the ram- 
ming vessel. 

Failing that, the Confederates prepared to board, 
but when the time came for them to make the attempt, 
the Monitor slipped into shallow water, where the 
other could not follow, and was safe. 

It was then that the Confederates first picked up 
heart ; for it was then that the Monitor drew out of the 
fight. They thought the little cheese-box had had 
enough, and were of good cheer. But they did not 
know. The Monitor'' s ammunition was fed from the 
hold through a scuttle in the main deck into a scuttle 
in the floor of the turret. It could be passed through 
only when the two scuttles were one over the other. 
All the ammunition on deck had been used up, and 
it was necessary to withdraw, bring the two scuttles 
together, and pass up more before continuing the 
fight. 

That done, the Monitor returned, like the bulldog 
that she was, to fasten her teeth again in the mastiff. 
Lieutenant Jones, despairing of accomplishing any- 
thing against the turret, ordered the fire of the guns 
to be directed toward the pilot house. A swarm of 
mighty shot hurled against the iron barricade. One 
of them, bursting at one of the slits through which 
Lieutenant Worden was looking, filled his eyes and 
face with burnt powder and iron dust, blinding him, 
and causing him to reel with pain. Believing that 



1 84 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

the blow had destroyed the pilot house, Worden 
ordered the Monitor to haul off. 

They took him below into the cabin, leading him 
blinded down the passages. " Is the Mmiiesota 
saved ? " he asked. 

They told him that it was. 

" Thank God 1 " he cried. " Then I can die." 

Lieutenant Greene, taking command, hurried to 
the pilot house to see what damage had been done. 
He found that the wheel was still intact, and that the 
iron barricade was whole. Learning that, he started 
back into the fight. It was then noon. 

But the Virginia, seeing the other draw off when 
Worden was wounded, had believed that she had 
quit, and had started back for her berth behind the 
Confederate forts on the Virginia shore. Greene 
followed and threw three shots after her, to let the 
enemy know that he was still ready for more. But 
the enemy had had enough. The little cheese-box 
had done her work well. 

The Virginia did not molest the Union vessels 
again. Once she came out, offering battle, but the 
Monitor, under orders from Washington to fight 
only in case of absolute necessity, did not accept 
the challenge. And so the fleet, and Washing- 
ton, and New York, and, perhaps, the country, were 
saved. 

The Virginia was afterward destroyed by the 
Confederates when Norfolk was abandoned to the 
Federal forces, and the Monitor sank in a storm off 



THE CHEESE-BOX 185 

Cape Hatteras, on her way to the southern Atlantic 
coast. 

But the deeds they did, and the fight they fought, 
will live forever. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE MAN IN THE RIGGING 

You have heard, of course, how David Glascoe 
Farragut climbed into the rigging of the Hartford, 
his flag-ship at the Battle of Mobile Bay, and directed 
the fight from above the smoke, and you have 
thought it was a very brave thing for him to stay up 
there, exposed to view and the fire of Fort Morgan 
and the enemy's ships. It was a brave thing for 
him to do. A man must be very brave to go into 
such a struggle of great guns and keep his wits 
about him, seeing everything and deciding upon 
the right thing to do each moment. 

Perhaps, as a matter of fact, he was in less danger 
in the rigging than he would have been on the 
quarter-deck, swept with flying slivers and the 
heavy shot of the enemy. The Confederate gun- 
ners were not aiming at the rigging of his ship, and 
they could not see him where he stood because of 
the smoke. Of course he did not go into the rig- 
ging because there was less danger there, but be- 
cause he could see better what was going on ; he 
thought of the danger neither one way nor another. 

But let me tell you of two other things he did 
that day that were much braver than that. 



THE MAN IN THE RIGGING 187 

Mobile Bay is shaped like a huge bell, thirty miles 
long and twenty wide at the bottom, which is toward 
the Gulf of Mexico. The bottom of the bell, next 
the gulf, is almost entirely closed by islands and 
shoals which leave only a narrow passage through 
which large ships can pass. This channel runs be- 
tween two of the islands ; Dauphin Island to the 
west, and Edith's Hammock to the east, passing two 
miles from the first, but only a few hundred yards 
from the second. 

The Confederates had seized and strengthened the 
forts that the United States government had built 
long before on these islands, calling the one, on 
Dauphin Island, Fort Gaines, and the other. Fort 
Morgan. They were both tremendously strong 
forts. The Confederates had driven piles into the 
bottom from Fort Gaines almost to the edge of the 
channel, and from the end of the line of piles they 
had planted torpedoes in three rows, carrying them 
into the channel. At the end of the rows of torpe- 
does was a red buoy ; it was necessary to pass be- 
tween that buoy and Fort Morgan to gain the bay 
from the gulf, which brought any vessel that tried 
to get through right up to the guns of Morgan. 
The guns were so many and so heavy that it was 
almost hopeless for a ship to pass without being 
sunk. 

Inside the bay, anchored near Fort Morgan, the 
Confederates had an iron-clad ram, the Teiinessee^ 
that was stronger than any vessel afloat. She was 



i88 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

made of heavy thicknesses of pine and oak covered 
with five inches of iron. The sides slanted back- 
ward at an angle of forty-five degrees, so that balls 
that struck against them would glance off into the 
air. Her body was so stout with heavy beams of 
wood that she could not be injured by being run 
into and rammed. She carried six guns, two on 
each side and one each at the bow and stern. The 
guns were fired through ports in her slanting sides, 
which could be covered by sliding five-inch plates 
of iron. And she had a terrible ram at her bows. 
She was a much more savage fighter than the Vir- 
ginia^ that had played havoc with the United States 
fleet in Hampton Roads two years before ; there was 
nothing in the Union navy that could contend with 
her, excepting, perhaps, some of the monitors, of 
which a number had been built since the original 
Mom'for saved the fleet in Virginia waters. 

One of the things that had quite as much to do 
with ending the Civil War as anything else was the 
blockade of Southern ports by the Northern navy. 
The entire coast was patrolled to prevent ships from 
going in and out. The Southerners could not send 
out their cotton and sugar to sell, or bring in the 
things they needed in carrying on the war. That is, 
it was intended that they should not be able to do 
so. As a matter of fact, many vessels, built for the 
purpose, did go in and out of the Southern ports 
carrying trade, and the blockade was not complete. 
It was Farragut's problem to get past the forts 



THE MAN IN THE RIGGING 189 

guarding the entrance to Mobile Bay and obtain 
control of the bay, so that no more vessels could 
slip in and out at that point, which, after the fall of 
New Orleans, was one of the most important ports 
in the entire South. 

To accomplish this purpose he had a fleet of 
wooden war vessels which stood no chance against 
the Confederate ram Tennessee. He begged the 
government to send him some monitors, and to 
supply a land force to help hold the bay after he 
should get inside. But it was many months before 
these things were done. If Washington had acted 
at once, Farragut could have gone in before the ram 
was completed, and before the forts had been made 
as strong as they were at the time of the fight. 
Early in August a small army came, and four moni- 
tors, two of them with two turrets, and Farragut 
was ready. 

He planned to make the attempt on the fourth of 
August, but something prevented. That night he 
was ill, and slept but little. He wanted two things 
to help him in. One was a wind from the west or 
southwest, which would blow the smoke of battle 
into the eyes of the gunners in Fort Morgan so that 
they could not see where to aim. Fort Gaines was 
so far away that it did not count. The other thing 
he needed was a flood-tide. 

The flood-tide has to do with one of the brave 
things he did. Let me show you how. The torpe- 
does that the Confederates had planted in three 



I90 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

rows as far as the red buoy, to force into the clutches 
of Fort Morgan any vessel that passed, were fitted 
with triggers to set them off. These triggers were 
arranged on the tops of the torpedoes, which were 
made of barrels or large tin tubs. A vessel striking 
against them would spring the trigger and explode 
the torpedo. 

What has that to do with a flood-tide ? I will tell 
you. Of course you know that a flood-tide run- 
ning in through the mouth of a gulf or bay sets up 
a strong current. Farragut knew how the torpedoes 
were made, and he knew that they were anchored 
by cables to the bottom. He figured that if the 
tide was running in strong, the torpedoes would be 
dragged by it and would swing on their cables, 
which would pull them down on a slant, and partly 
turn them over, so that the triggers, which were on 
top of the torpedoes, would be held away from ships 
coming down the tide from outside the bay. Like 
this: 



^i^rface ofSa^ 




a^. Torpedo Z-'Ttigtiv C- nncn«r 



THE MAN IN THE RIGGING 191 

Also, of course, the strong tide would help carry 
the vessels in, if they should be crippled by the fire 
from the fort. 

It was easy enough to take advantage of the flood- 
tides ; there were two a day, and they came at pretty 
definite times, unless the wind happened to fight 
them down and delay them. One of the flood- 
tides, everybody knew, would be strong at five or 
six o'clock the next morning. But no one could tell 
when the wind would be blowing from the west or 
southwest. 

At three o'clock on the morning of August fifth, 
Farragut, half sick and restless, was visited in his 
cabin by the steward. 

" Which way is the wind ? " he asked. 

The steward, being only a steward, hadn't noticed. 
He went up on deck to observe, and came down to 
report that it was westerly. 

" Good ! " exclaimed Farragut. " We'll go in this 
morning." 

Presently little silver whistles began to tinkle 
through the fleet, piping all hands. The fighting 
men came running on deck, eager for battle, bring- 
ing with them their hammocks, which they hung and 
piled around them to protect themselves as well as 
possible from the swarms of splinters that would soon 
be flying about, torn and scattered by the Confeder- 
ate guns. 

Every preparation had been made for the passage 
of the fort. The commanders of the several vessels 



192 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

of the fleet had protected and strengthened their 
ships in every way they could, with iron plates, and 
chains, and bags of sand ; one of the boats had a 
breastwork of sand-bags behind her sides running 
from bow to stern. All the guns that could be ac- 
commodated were dragged to the starboard side of 
the ships, which would be next the fort. 

The fleet steamed in pairs ; each of the larger ves- 
sels had one of the smaller lashed to her on the out- 
side, away from the fort. This served two purposes. 
The smaller would be protected from almost certain 
destruction by being sheltered, and at the same time 
would be able to tow the larger through the fire if it 
should become disabled. 

Farragut had been prevailed upon to permit the 
Brooklyn, a large wooden ship, to lead the fleet. In 
approaching the passage it was necessary to run 
head on toward the fort for a distance, and the 
Brooklyn had more bow guns that could be brought 
to bear than the flag-ship. The Hartford came next 
in line. The four monitors steamed a little ahead of 
the others, and to the right, nearer the fort. The 
other vessels, ten more pairs in all, came in line be- 
hind, in divisions of four pairs. In that order they 
crossed the bar in the early morning, and moved 
toward the fort. 

One of the monitors, the Tecumseh, in advance, 
fired two fifteen-inch shells at the fort without reply. 
Her commander, Captain T. A. M. Craven, seeing 
the ram Tennessee poke her nose from behind the 



THE MAN IN THE RIGGING 193 

fort and pass leisurely across to the westward, turned 
to follow, neglecting the red buoy that marked the 
end of the rows of torpedoes. He had his instruc- 
tions to destroy the ram, and he set out to do it, let 
the torpedoes be where they might. 

Farragut meanwhile had climbed into the main 
rigging to be clear of the smoke. His own vessel, 
and the Brooklyn ahead of him, were now roaring 
with their great guns at the enemy's fort ; the rat- 
lines shook and twanged with the recoil. Farragut, 
seeing everything, saw the water lift and boil under 
the bow of the Tecumseh, saw her fiing her nose from 
right to left, and lurch under the waves. She had 
been blown up by a torpedo, and had carried nearly 
a hundred men to the bottom with her. Captain 
Craven, in the pilot house with the pilot, had stood 
aside to let the other escape. When his turn came 
it was too late ; he w^as drowned with the others. 

The battle was now in full blast. The fort was 
hurling its shot and shell and canister into the 
Union ships, right under its nose, and those that 
could bring their guns to bear were replying. A 
great cloud of sulphurous smoke drifted between the 
vessels and the fort. 

Suddenly the Brooklyn, in advance, stopped and 
began to back. Farragut saw it coming toward the 
Hartford, stern first. He hailed, and learned that 
she was trying to escape the fate that had just met 
the Tecumseh. Then he did a very brave thing. 

" Damn the torpedoes ! " he said. " Follow me ! " 



194 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

And without stopping to count the risk he headed 
his ship outside the buoy directly across the nest 
of torpedoes that had been planted to destroy 
them. 

Her men, seeing what was taking place, waited 
with set faces for the blow from beneath that they 
expected would destroy them. They waited for it, 
but they did not flinch. As they waited, they could 
hear the grating of the deadly weapons beneath the 
water as the hull ran over them ; those in the am- 
munition room below heard the horrid things scrap- 
ing the bottom. Up in the ratlines, with a line 
about his body tying him to the shrouds, placed 
there by order of the vessel's captain, stood Farra- 
gut, seeing everything, thinking nothing of the tor- 
pedoes. 

Behind the Hartford came the Richmond. The 
Brooklyn, still floundering about, got in the way. 
The Rich7nond was forced to back to avoid a colli- 
sion. In backing she bore off and brought her 
broadside fully to bear on the fort. Out sprang a 
storm of shot and shell and canister that tore 
through the embrasures of the fort, driving the men 
from the guns, and slackening the enemy's fire. At 
last the two got free of each other and followed the 
Hartford over the field of mines. The Hartford was 
now a mile ahead. The din was furious. 

Coming toward them, formidable, frightful, was 
the ram Tennessee, stronger than any vessel in their 
fieet ; stronger than the Virginia that had destroyed 



THE MAN IN THE RIGGING 195 

the Cumberland and Congress in Hampton Roads. 
Head on toward the Hartford she came. As she 
approached, the Hartford, quicker and faster than 
she, pulled to one side, avoiding her, and sending in 
a broadside that rattled against the iron protection 
and slid over her, or tumbled in fragments into the 
water. It seemed hopeless to try to cope with her. 
The ram turned to follow the fiag-ship. 

Nor was that the only danger that threatened Far- 
ragut. Three Confederate gunboats, mounting stern 
chasers, kept ahead of him, out of reach of his broad- 
sides, and poured their raking fire along his decks. 
The ship was a shambles. Blood ran in her scup- 
pers ; splinters and shreds of human flesh filled the 
air, showering on the deck of the Metacomet, the 
consort that was lashed to her. The Hartford was 
helpless against them, having only one gun that 
would bear. But she kept on, drawing out of range 
of the fort. 

Presently the ram, dogging at her heels, turned 
and passed down the line of approaching ships. The 
Brooklyn and Richmond meanwhile had cleared 
themselves and were coming on in support of the 
Hartford, now a mile ahead. She passed the Brook- 
lyn with a broadside ; one shell tore through and 
through the wooden sides of the Union vessel. The 
Richmond met her with a fire that disconcerted the 
ram's gunners, so that her answering shots went 
wide. She passed on until she came to the Monon- 
gahela, which tried to ram, but struck only a glanc- 



196 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

ing blow. The Ossippee^ coming next, received two 
shot that pierced her. The Oneida, following, in 
crippled condition, was saved from a broadside only 
by the failure of the Tennessee^ s primers. Passing 
under the stern of the Oneida^ the ram raked her, 
killing and wounding many, among them Captain 
MuUany, her commander, who lost an arm. She 
was about to rake again when the monitor Winne- 
bago, which had been attending to the fort all this 
time, steamed in between them and engaged the 
Tennessee. The Winnebagd s captain, Stevens, had 
been the captain of the Oneida, but had turned over 
command to Mullany, whose vessel was not suitable 
for such a fight. There were two turrets on the 
Winnebago. In one of them was a conning tower, 
from which the officers were supposed to direct the 
fighting. But Captain Stevens found it difficult to 
see all that was going on through the little slits pro- 
vided for that purpose in the conning tower, and was 
out on deck, pacing between the two turrets, the 
only man visible about her, exposed to all the ter- 
rible fire that was rushing back and forth through 
the air. 

At the head of the line the Hartford was having 
an easier time of it. As soon as the Tennessee had 
left off pursuit, Farragut ordered the Metacomet to 
cut loose and chase the gunboats that were playing 
havoc on the decks of the flag-ship, and Lieutenant 
Jouet, her commander, started after them, driving 
them up the bay. One of them was disabled and 



THE MAN IN THE RIGGING 197 

run ashore near the fort, another escaped, but a 
third, the Selma, was overhauled and taken. 

That ended the first round. The entire fleet passed 
Fort Morgan and joined the Hartford, four miles 
above. They knew the worst of it was not over ; 
that the dreadful Tennessee yet remained to be des- 
troyed, but for the present they could rest. The 
sailors fell to clearing up their ships, restoring order, 
washing off the blood. The odor of coffee filled 
their nostrils, and they heard the clatter of mess-gear 
being set out for their breakfast. It was then eight 
o'clock. 

In the midst of preparations for breakfast came the 
alarm that the Tennessee was returning, and they saw 
her steaming up the bay toward them, trailing a 
long streamer of black smoke behind as she came. 
Then Farragut did the second brave thing of that 
day. Knowing perfectly well that she was stronger 
than any vessel he had ; that her ram could crush 
through the sides of his vessels as though they had 
been paper, and that shot would rattle and tumble 
off her sides like hail, he nevertheless turned back to 
meet her. Coffee was forgotten ; stains of blood 
were left uncleansed. There might well be more 
stains before they were done, or there might 
well be no need to wash them. Perhaps the 
waters of Mobile Bay would do that with incessant 
lapping. 

" Destroy the ram," was the signal to the monitors. 

" Ram the principal vessel of the enemy," was the 



198 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

signal to the Lackawanna, the MonongaJiela, and the 
Ossippee, which lay nearer her than the others. 

Right bravely did they turn to the attack. The 
Monongahela steamed into the Tennessee with a 
mighty rush, head on, striking her amidships and at 
right angles, receiving in the act two shells that tore 
through her. The blow did nothing to the ram. In 
a moment the Lackawaimay coming up from the other 
side, struck her a second blow, full, and at right 
angles. The Tennessee heeled over and swung 
around broadside to her antagonist, but no harm had 
been done her. 

And now came the Hartford, under full steam, 
bearing down upon her enemy, Farragut on her 
decks, thinking only to destroy the formidable foe. 
But just as he came the Tennessee sheered off, so 
that she received only a glancing blow. . . . All 
the pounding shot the three were pouring against 
her iron sides only shattered themselves to pieces. 

Now the monitors came up. The Manhattan 
hurled a fifteen-inch shot against the ram that broke 
through the iron and slivered the huge beams sup- 
porting it, but did not pass inside. The Winnebagd s 
turret machinery was broken so that she had to turn 
in the water to bring the guns to bear, but the 
Chickasaw, the third monitor, with two turrets, was 
luckier. She fastened herself on the stern of the 
ram and began to chew with her great guns at the 
barrier that protected the men. Blow on blow fell 
against the massy walls of the craft ; blows that 



THE MAN IN THE RIGGING 199 

could not be returned, because the port-lids had be- 
come jammed and the guns could not be worked. 

All about the ram were her unrelenting enemies, 
seeking to strike another blow. The Hartford, 
swinging wide to come at her again, was rammed 
by the Lackazcaniia, which tore a hole in her sides 
within two feet of the water line, and nearly killed 
Farragut, who was standing near. The Union ves- 
sels were so thick they could not get at their solitary 
victim. 

Slowly the dogged Chickasaw began to wear 
down the will of the ram. Battered on all sides, 
wounded, unable to strike back, her smoke-stack 
gone, her fires falling, and the smoke pouring into 
the room where the brave defenders were struggling 
to make use of their guns, her plight was pitiable. 
Admiral Buchanan, directing the fight in person, 
called for a machinist to work on a pin of one of the 
port shutters. As the man was working to free it, a 
shot struck the shutter and the man was utterly 
crushed. And a bolt, flying off under the impact, 
broke Buchanan's leg. 

For twenty long minutes more the brave men 
clung to hope. At the end of that time, unable to 
strike a single blow in their defense, with the stern 
wall of their floating fortress gradually crumbling 
under the teeth of the Chickasaza, they surrendered, 
and the fight was done. Mobile Bay was in the 
hands of the Union fleet. 

But what would have been the end of the fight if 



200 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Farragiit had not been a braver man than one who 
merely climbed into the ratlines of his ship to direct 
her fight? What if he had not had a courage that 
was above torpedoes, and above a monster fighting 
ship that could have picked off his own, one by one, 
at her leisure ? Who can say ? 



CHAPTER IX 

"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 

William Barker Gushing, lieutenant in the 
United States Navy, was only a boy. Perhaps he 
would not have liked being called a boy, for he was 
twenty-one years of age at the time of which I write, 
but no one who had not the heart of a boy, with a 
boy's love for adventure and recklessness of death, 
would have done half the things he did. 

Even if Gushing had never done the big thing of 
which I am going to tell he would have been well 
worth writing about. He was a thin slip of a lad, 
six feet tall, quick on his feet, athletic, wiry, with 
brown eyes full of laughter, and a merry voice. He 
did not know what fear was. That is a thing that 
is often said of men and boys, but it was strictly true 
of him. Danger meant nothing to him but fun. He 
thought no more of risking his life than you think 
of risking your little finger when you scoop up a hot 
grounder at short-stop. He was perfectly modest 
with it all. Not knowing that there was such an 
emotion as fear, it never occurred to him that he 
was braver than other men, or boys. He took it as 
a matter of course, just as he took his long legs and 



202 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

brown eyes as a matter of course, and not things to 
be especially proud of. 

The first thing Gushing did was when he was 
eighteen. He had been a cadet at Annapolis. He 
had resigned from the naval academy for some 
reason early in 1861, but volunteered in the navy 
early in the Civil War, and was made acting master's 
mate, and assigned to the North Atlantic blockading 
squadron. In that command he captured a Confed- 
erate tobacco schooner valued at $30,000, the first 
capture by the United States Navy in the war. This 
happened on the first day of his active service with 
the North Atlantic blockading squadron. 

By July, 1862, when he was not yet twenty. Gush- 
ing was made a lieutenant, for " acts of successful 
daring" on the blockade, and immediately proceeded 
to other acts of daring. He was with Rowan when 
that officer captured Elizabeth City, in North Caro- 
lina. One of the fruits of the capture was a small 
steamer, the Ellis. Cushing was put in command 
of the Ellis, and stationed off New River, lower down 
on the coast. 

Thirty-five miles up New River was the town of 
Jacksonville. It lay on the mail route from Wil- 
mington, North Carolina, one of the important sea- 
ports of the Confederacy, to Richmond, the Confed- 
erate capital. Somewhere near Jacksonville, accord- 
ing to report, was a salt works. The Confederate 
states were in distress for salt ; nothing could hurt 
them much more than to cut off their supply of it. 



" ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN " 203 

They needed it so badly that the Confederate sol- 
diers were often obliged to sprinlde gunpowder on 
their food in place of it. 

Cushing decided that it would be a good move to 
destroy the salt works, and incidentally to capture 
Jacksonville and see whether there was any mail of 
importance in the post-office there. The thirty-five 
miles of river between him and the town ran through 
a country of which nothing more was known than 
that it was a red-hot secession country, and that the 
banks of the river were heavily wooded, offering a 
splendid chance for masked batteries and all sorts of 
hidden dangers. 

But Cushing, of course, thought nothing of that. 
He set out up the river in the Ellis, with nothing 
on his mind but the capture of the town and the 
destruction of the salt works. As the expedition ap- 
proached Jacksonville the men on the Ellis saw a 
dense column of smoke arising from the river be- 
yond a bend, and believed that the Confederates had 
fired the town and left. They hurried forward. As 
they passed the bend they ran across a cotton 
schooner afire. It had been all ready to put to sea 
and take its chances in running the blockade, but 
Cushing's advance up the river had prevented it, so 
the owners of the cotton had set fire to it, rather than 
see it fall into the hands of the Union men. 

Some men would not have taken the chance of run- 
ning by the burning schooner for fear their own ves- 
sel might catch fire, but Cushing, being only a boy, 



204 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

was not that kind of a man. He pushed on to Jack- 
sonville, captured it, seized two schooners, took the 
mail out of the post-office, and then set out to find 
the salt works. The reason why he did not destroy 
the salt works was a good one ; there were no salt 
works to be found. 

There being nothing more that he could do. Gush- 
ing set ofi down the river again, keeping a sharp 
lookout for Confederates, with one of the schooners 
in tow. The other he had burned. He had not 
gone very far before he saw an encampment on the 
bank. He stopped and fired into it, until the Con- 
federates all ran away, and then proceeded. A 
short distance below the enemy opened on him with 
two guns hidden in a fringe of brush at the top of 
the high bank. By this time there were plenty of 
Confederates running up and down the side of the 
river howling at him. 

Cushing returned the fire with his one cannon, a 
pivot gun amidships, and soon put a stop to the bat- 
tery. But by that time it was so late that the pilots 
would not try to get the steamer down the river 
among the shoals and bars. There was nothing for 
it but to drop anchor and lay there all night, with no 
one knew how many Confederates prowling around 
the banks waiting to attack them. The woods were 
full of lantern lights. 

There didn't seem to be much chance for the Ellis 
if the enemy took it into their heads to come out, 
but Cushing got ready to give them a warm recep- 



" ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN " 205 

tion. Boarding nets were spread, cudasses and re- 
volvers were brought out, and the crew stood on 
guard all night. It was an anxious time until morn- 
ing. But morning came at last, and the Confeder- 
ates had let them alone. 

They started down-stream again, and were begin- 
ning to feel pretty safe, when a real disaster over- 
took them. The pilot got in the wrong channel and 
ran the Ellis fast on a sand-bar. Cushing, seeing a 
chance of getting her off, had everything movable 
transferred to the schooner that he had been towing. 
But still she stuck. 

Determined not to lose his ship, the lad sent some 
sailors back to get the guns the Confederates had 
used on him from the bluff the afternoon before. 
He intended to make: a land battery of them and 
stay by until the Ellis could be brought off. But 
the Confederates had come in the night and removed 
the guns. 

Still Cushing would not abandon his ship. He 
put his crew in the schooner, all but six volunteers, 
and ordered it to drop down the river for a mile or 
two. Presently, as he had expected, the enemy be- 
gan to open on him with half a dozen guns scattered 
up and down the bank. Cushing fought back until 
the Confederates found the range and began to drop 
their shells on deck, setting fire to the Ellis. When 
he saw that he could not hold out, and had made 
sure that the fires set by the enemy's guns would 
destroy the Ellis, he loaded her swivel gun with a 



2o6 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

last charge, and took to the small boat. The seven 
men rowed through the fire of the Confederate guns 
to the schooner, and made their way back to the 
blockading squadron, Cushing felt very badly 
about it, and asked for a court of enquiry, but his 
superiors only smiled, and would have patted him 
on the back if they had dared. 

The next big thing he did was foolhardy and 
reckless. He was cruising off Cape Fear River in 
the Moniicello, of which he was commander. At 
the mouth of the river was the Confederate fort Cas- 
well. Above the fort was a little village called 
Smithville, occupied at the time as a post by a Con- 
federate force under General Hebert. 

Cushing took twenty men in two boats, rowed up 
past the fort on a dark night, hauled up under a 
high bank in front of Smithville, and with Master's 
Mate William L. Howarth, another officer, and a 
seaman, walked up to the general's headquarters 
in such a cool and deliberate manner that the thou- 
sand Confederate soldiers in the town paid not the 
least attention, thinking that they had business there. 

And they had business there. Their business was 
to capture one Mr. Hebert, adjutant-general of the 
Confederate army. The first man they walked into 
was an engineer officer, who started to yell, but was 
promptly muzzled. He succeeded in making enough 
noise before he was muzzled, however, to alarm 
General Hebert, who took to his heels, half dressed, 
thinking his troops had mutinied. Finding the gen- 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 207 

eral gone, Gushing and his companions, with their 
prisoner, strolled back to their boats, got in, and 
rowed down the river. It was not until the adjutant- 
general came back out of the woods whither he had 
fled that the Confederates knew that an enemy had 
been among them. 

Four months later Cushing made a more danger- 
ous excursion into the same country. This time he 
had a better excuse. The Confederates had a ram, 
the Raleigh, that had been making things uncomfort- 
able for the blockading squadron. The ram was be- 
lieved to be in the Cape Fear River, lurking to come 
out. She had been out once, and done some dam- 
age. It was agreed among the officers of the block- 
ading fleet that it would be a good thing for them 
if the ram were destroyed. 

That was just the kind of task that was to young 
Cushing's liking. He obtained permission to go 
and blow her up with a torpedo. He started on the 
business on the night of June 23, 1864, taking with 
him Jones and Howarth, the two who had been with 
him before, and fifteen men in a boat. The night 
was cloudy and dark. The boat got past the fort, 
and Smithville, without trouble, but as it was slip- 
ping up the river the moon came out. The strip of 
river between the wooded banks became suddenly 
as light as da)^ and the Confederate sentries who 
paced up and down the banks saw the boat full of 
men. 

Cushing turned about quickly, and made down- 



2o8 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

stream as fast as he could go. Of course the enemy, 
not knowing that it was Gushing, believed the boat 
was fleeing. Gushing kept on until he got under the 
shadow of the bank, when he turned about once 
more and went up the river in the shadow, past the 
relieved sentries. He could hear them shouting at 
each other across the river, discussing the sudden 
disappearance of the boat, and he had work enough 
to keep from laughing out loud. He was much of a 
boy, as you see. 

Dawn found them seven miles from Wilmington. 
"Wilmington was a Confederate stronghold, and the 
country was filled with Confederates. If the men in 
the boat should be found, they would probably be 
hanged as spies. They turned the boat into a 
swamp, and lay there all day, without saying a word 
above a whisper. It was not very pleasant or com- 
fortable, but it was much more pleasant and comfort- 
able than being hanged as spies. 

Just as they were about to start out, a fishing 
party came down from Wilmington in two boats. 
That made it awkward. If the fishing party 
should spread the alarm the jackies would be lost. 
There was nothing for it but to catch the party that 
had come out to catch fish. So the thing was done. 

That night Cushing spent in prowling about the 
river, finding out what he could about the defenses 
of the town. He was not one to leave anything un- 
done while he was about it. In the morning, being 
a boy all through, he conceived the notion of rowing 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 209 

up a little creek to where the road from Wilmington 
to Fort Fisher crossed, to see what he could find. It 
was too good a joke to let get by. 

Hiding his boat behind a bend in the creek, he 
hid himself under the bridge where the road crossed, 
and waited. Presently he heard a horse galloping 
down from Wilmington. He came out of his hid- 
ing, and held up the horseman. The fellow was 
carrying dispatches to the fort. Gushing turned him 
over to his men, and waited for the next to come 
along. 

The next came along, but he was too quick for 
the lad. He turned around and started back to the 
town, as fast as his horse could run. Gushing 
leaped on the horse of the man he had taken and 
put after him, but the other's animal was too fleet 
and he got away. 

Anybody but a boy would have thought it about 
time to clear out. The one who had escaped might 
give an alarm in Wilmington, and they might ex- 
pect an entire army along the road pretty soon. 
But Gushing, being only a boy, and learning from 
one of their prisoners that there was a store two 
miles away, found out that he was hungry. Nothing 
would do but he must have something to eat from 
that store. Grackers and cheese, perhaps, or a bag 
of ginger snaps. 

Howarth was hungry also. Howarth was so 
hungry that he would risk his life for the things in 
that store. There was a man among the prisoners, 



2IO BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

a "cracker," who was about the same size as 
Howarth. Howarth put on his rough jean clothes, 
and started out for the store, on the horse Gushing 
had captured. They had lots of fun over it ; Gush- 
ing laughed till he had to hold his sides to see 
Howarth riding off in the rig of the " cracker." 

Howarth jaunted along, gossiping with every one 
he met, cracked jokes with the storekeeper, and 
came back in good time loaded with good things to 
eat. The crew ate a merry supper, hidden in the 
bushes, and amused themselves cutting telegraph 
wires until it was dark enough to start out again. 

This was the third night they had been in the river, 
and they had not done the thing that they came to 
do. But Gushing would not go back without doing 
it. Getting into the boat with his prisoners, he rowed 
out into the river again, and went to look for the 
Confederate ram. Presently he found her, and 
found that he need not have come. She was a 
total wreck, having been destroyed by the Confeder- 
ates themselves. It seems that she had been strained 
so badly on a passage over the bar at the mouth of 
the river that it was impossible to repair her, and 
her own people had sunk her rather than risk her 
being taken by the enemy. 

Serious things were in store for the party. Set- 
ting the prisoners adrift in their boats without sails 
or oars, so that they could not get anywhere soon 
enough to raise an alarm. Gushing started down the 
stream to return to the fleet outside. The night was 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 211 



cloudy and dark, excepting for occasional flashes of 
the moon through breaks in the clouds. 

One of these flashes came just as they had reached 
the mouth of the river, showing up the water like a 
sheet of silver. Black on the sheet was a Confeder- 
ate guard-ship, only a few boat-lengths away. 

" Boat ahoy ! What boat is that ? " came a hail 
from the guard-ship. 

Cushing leaned forward. " At 'em, boys I " he 
said, in a low voice, and his men pulled strong for 
the enemy. Boy that he was, he was going to take 
this boat, just to make a day of it. 

But as they were coming up swiftly, three more 
boats crept out of the shadows of the clouds into the 
patch of light. That was three too many, even for a 
boy, and Cushing headed about quickly. As he 
headed, four boats came from the shadows on the 
other side of the floating patch. Things were get- 
ting interesting. 

Cushing steered for the space between the boats ; 
there was room, and there was time. But in an in- 
stant a large schooner emerged from the darkness, 
filled with soldiers, and cut him off. 

The situation was desperate. They were sur- 
rounded by overpowering numbers. The men looked 
at Cushing, to see what he was going to do about it. 

Some boys would have got rattled in those cir- 
cumstances. Not so Cushing. Heading swiftly to 
the west, he gave the word, and the men pulled, as 
though they had not already been pulling through 



212 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

the hours of the night. The boat shot in the direc- 
tion of the distant western inlet. 

The men with him wondered what he was doing 
that for ; the enemy could easily head him off there. 

Perhaps the Confederates wondered too, thinking 
the man a fool. At any rate, they all started at once 
to intercept him, going as fast as they could across 
his course. 

The clouds were stirring in the sky ; blotches of 
shadow traced themselves over the water. Presently 
one of the shadows swallowed Cushing's boat for an 
instant. In that instant he headed about. The Con- 
federates could not see him. 

When the cloud was gone, and they looked for 
their prey, they beheld him making swift tracks be- 
hind them for the crossing of the bar. Before they 
could take up the chase again, Cushing and his men 
were in the breakers, and giving three cheers, boy- 
like, for the disappointed and chagrined Johnnies. 

So much for Cushing for the present. Now for the 
circumstances and events that led up to the biggest 
thing the boy did ; the biggest thing, perhaps, that 
any boy ever did — or man, either, for that matter. 

You must know that early in the war, the United 
States fleet established and maintained a blockade of 
the Confederate ports, preventing ships from passing 
in or out. Of course a good many got past the 
blockade, and it was very exciting work, but the free 
flow of commerce was interfered with. This was a 
serious thing for the Confederate states ; one of the 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 213 

most serious they had to contend with. They had 
to get their cotton out to obtain money for carrying 
on the war, and they had to get all sorts of goods in 
for their own use. They manufactured very little in 
the South; the growing of cotton was almost their 
only industry. So when the Northern vessels pre- 
vented them from shipping out their cotton in ex- 
change for the things they had to have they were in 
a serious situation. 

If the Confederates had had a navy they could 
have opened the blockade in spots. But they hadn't 
any to speak of ; nothing that could compete success- 
fully and for any time with the Northern navy. So 
they set about building ironclads and rams with 
which they hoped to be able to sink the wooden ships 
of the enemy. 

One of the ironclads was the Merrimac. You 
know her story. Another was the Raleigh, which 
Cushing had already been to destroy. Another was 
the Albemarle ; and now we come to our story. 

The Albemarle was built in a corn field above 
Plymouth, on the Roanoke River, which empties into 
Albemarle Sound, in North Carolina. The Union 
boats were in possession of the Sound, and were in 
possession of Plymouth at the time the ram was 
building. The Union officers in the fleet knew all 
about her, and asked Major-General Foster, in com- 
mand of the Union army in North Carolina, to go 
and burn her. But Foster laughed at their fears, 
telling them the vessel would never be put to use. 



214 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The Albemarle was a savage fighting-machine for 
those times. She was low and wide and flat-bottomed, 
so she could cross the bars where the Union vessels 
could not. She had a wicked snout which was de- 
signed to be rammed into the sides of an enemy, and 
she carried two hundred pound guns. But worst of 
all, she was covered with four inches of iron. The 
guns of those days would not shoot through four 
inches of iron, and everybody knew it. Perhaps 
General Foster, even, knew that. 

I wish you could know how hard the Confederates 
worked to build that ram. As I said, she was built 
in a corn field. Of course, her keel was laid close to 
the water, but there was nothing like a ship-yard 
where she was started. And all they had to work with 
was a blacksmith's forge and what iron they could 
scrape up in the countryside. They called Captain 
Cooke, who helped to build her, the " Ironmonger 
Captain," because he used to send men around in 
wagons picking up old bolts, bars, horseshoes, axles, 
nails — anything they could find. I don't doubt they 
used to call out " Old iron ! Old iron ! " as they drove 
through the neighboring villages and farmyards. 

At last she was ready for the water, fitted with two 
engines and twin screws, and started out. Even as 
she started out to fight the men still worked on her. 
There were ten portable forges aboard her; and" the 
men were driving the last rivets as she got up steam 
and worked her way down the narrow river toward 
Plymouth. 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 215 

The plan was to attack Plymouth. General Hoke, 
with a Confederate force, moved by land, and the 
Albemaide by water. The Union boats Miami and 
Soiithfield were at Plymouth, under command of 
Lieutenant Flusser, in the Miami. Lieutenant Flus- 
ser knew that he had no chance against the monster 
with a huge beak whose sides his guns could not 
penetrate, but he stood his ground. 

The Albemarle came down, rammed the South- 
field and sunk it, and would have done the same by 
the Miami if that vessel had not got out of the way. 
The brave lieutenant was killed. He fired a shot 
against the iron hide of the monster at close range. 
The shot flew into bits, and the pieces came back 
and killed him. 

The Albemarle was unhurt, but she nearly foun- 
dered. She drove her beak so far into the Soiithfield 
that when that vessel sunk the wreck clung to the 
nose of the Confederate boat and all but pulled her 
down too. 

Captain Melanchthon Smith, who was in command 
of the Union squadron, immediately set about gath- 
ering a fleet to meet the ram, and there was a pretty 
fight between them all early in May, 1864. The 
first fight had been on the 29th of April of that year. 
In the second fight the gunboat Sassaais went head 
on into the Albemarle, with oil and waste burning in 
her furnaces to give her head of steam, with the hope 
that the ram might be rammed. 

The Sassacus got much the worst of it. She did 



2i6 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

no damage, and was badly crippled herself. Two of 
the hundred pound shots from the Confederate boat 
tore through her vitals, ripping up her engines, tear- 
ing loose her steam pipes, and filling her with scald- 
ing steam. She would have blown up if it had not 
been for James W. Hobby, first assistant engineer 
on board. 

Never forget what he did that day. He went 
down into that scalding steam to the fire room, 
where the fire was puffing under the boilers, fed by 
waste and oil, and dragged the coals out with a fire- 
rake. He stayed there until he had finished the task. 
Then they brought him out, blinded and helpless. 

The fight kept up all day. The iron pellets from 
the Union ships showered against the sides of the 
Albetnarle, and rolled off into the water, doing no 
damage. At dark she drew off up the Sound to 
Plymouth, but the Union officers were in despair. 
They knew that she could come down and annihilate 
them at her own pleasure, and they could do noth- 
ing to prevent it. 

Then it was that William Barker Cushing did what 
he did. A man up in New York had just finished 
making two steam picket boats of a new type, de- 
vised by an engineer in the navy named John L. 
Lay, and introduced into the navy by Chief Engi- 
neer William Willis Wiley Wood. These two 
picket boats had each a spar hinged on the bow. 
The spar was about twenty-eight feet long, and was 
so arranged that it could be lifted, or lowered be- 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 217 

neath the water. The idea was to fasten a torpedo 
to the end of the spar, poke it against the side of any 
vessel you wanted to blow up, pull a string, and there 
you were. The boats were decked over forward, and 
carried each a twelve-pound howitzer. The engines 
were very carefully made so that they would run 
quietly, and were so arranged in the picket boats that 
they could be covered with tarpaulins to shut in their 
light and sound. 

At best, they were not very safe things for the men 
who should endeavor to use them against an enemy's 
ship, and they required delicate skill in the handling. 
It was necessary to take the launch within twenty- 
five or thirty feet of an enemy, and to jab the tor- 
pedo against the side of the intended victim at pre- 
cisely the right moment. The torpedo had to be 
placed beneath the water line. You can easily see 
that if the launch was driven too close, the torpedo 
would overreach, and if the launch was not brought 
close enough, it would not reach at all. And while 
the launch was being brought to the right point, it 
was not reasonable to hope that the enemy would be 
entirely ignorant or idle. 

The man who had to operate the torpedo spar ran 
an especial risk. He was obliged to stand in the 
bows, wholly unprotected from sight or shot, and 
pull the string firing the torpedo at the proper in- 
stant of time. And then the troubles of the picket 
boat were likely to be just beginning. Of course 
the explosion of a torpedo that would be large 



2i8 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

enough to sink a ram or an ironclad, within thirty 
feet of the little launch, would certainly do more 
or less to the launch. If the explosion did not 
swamp it, the waves from the sinking victim would 
be more than likely to do so. It was a dangerous 
business. I have never been able to learn whether 
the men who built the picket boats in New York 
were anxious to operate them in Albemarle Sound. 

But Gushing was anxious to do so. It was just 
the sort of work that appealed to his boyish imagi- 
nation. It was the kind of game he liked to play. 
He sought and obtained command of the proposed 
expedition to blow up the ram Albemarle, then lying 
at Plymouth. Mind you, he was not twenty-two, 
and he was chosen for the task because his superi- 
ors knew that in all the fleet there was not another 
man, or boy, so well fitted to carry out the plans. 

There had already been one attempt to blow up 
the Confederate ram. Coal-heaver Baldwin, with 
four men from the Wyalusing, had gone in a boat 
up the Roanoke River, under cover of the night, 
carrying with them four torpedoes. The plan was 
to float the torpedoes down against the Albemarle, 
where they were to be fired by Coal-heaver Baldwin, 
who was to swim down with them. But on the way 
down the torpedoes fouled a schooner, Baldwin _was 
discovered, and the five men had difficulty in escap- 
ing with their lives from the swamp where they had 
hidden. 

Cushing's plan was to take the two picket boats, 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 219 

slip up the river at night, and attack the ram where 
she lay at the Plymouth wharf. The Confederates 
had taken every possible precaution against such an 
attack. The river was watched constantly by a 
double line of sentries along its banks. There was 
a squad of guards on a schooner near the wreck of 
the Soiithjield, a mile below the place where the 
Albemarle was tied up. There were a thousand 
Confederate soldiers camped on and near the wharf. 
Great fires were kept burning every night to light 
up the river and prevent a surprise. The crew of 
the ram was eternally vigilant. The hundred pound 
guns were kept loaded and trained on the bend of 
the river below, which any attacking party would 
have to round. As a last precaution, a boom of 
heavy cypress logs was stretched in front of the ram, 
at a distance from her of thirty feet, to fend off float- 
ing torpedoes. 

Cushing did not know about the boom of logs. 
In fact, he did not know clearly about any of the 
precautions, except that there was a guard at the 
wreck of the Southfield. Of course, he guessed 
that there were plenty of Confederates around to 
take care of their one naval hope. But he did not 
care for them ; they made the adventure just that 
much more interesting. He had already done so 
many daredevil things that any ordinary risk was 
simply dull work. 

On the way down from New York one of the 
picket boats was swamped in a storm on Chesapeake 



220 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Bay. Gushing brought the other through safely, 
and reported on her to Commander Macomb, of the 
Shamrock, who was the senior officer in those waters. 
Final preparations were made, and on the night of 
October 26, 1864, the lad started. 

He had with him a picked crew of thirteen officers 
and men ; among them his old chums, Tom Gay and 
Billy Howarth. They were towed by the Otsego to 
a point on the Sound near the mouth of the Roanoke. 
Presently they started under their own steam ; but 
they had not gone far when the launch ran aground. 
It was so late before Gushing could get her off that 
when he finally succeeded in doing so he was 
obliged to put back to the Otsego and wait for an- 
other favorable night. 

It was now the night of October 29th. Gushing, 
who had been burning up with impatience for three 
days, had spent the evening running from the ward- 
room to the deck to see how the weather was com- 
ing on. The evening had set in with promise of 
clouds, and a possibility of rain. Once or twice the 
sky had broken clear, but about ten o'clock it began 
to thicken up more and more. At midnight Gush- 
ing bounced down into the ward-room with a whoop. 
"Come on, boys ! " he said, " we can make it now. 
It's as black as a' nigger's pocket." 

The crew clambered into the launch. A cutter 
was filled with armed men and made fast at the 
stern of the launch. Gushing knew about the 
guard schooner at the wreck of the Southjield. He 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 221 

thought he might need these men to take care of 
that vessel. 

" Good-bye," said Gushing, shaking hands all 
round with the officers of the Otsego. " It's another 
stripe or a cofBn this time," he laughed. And, 
although he laughed when he said it, they knew 
that he meant it. 

Lieutenant Gushing was the last aboard the picket 
boat. He went forward to have a look at the tor- 
pedo spar, examined the howitzer, lifted a tarpaulin 
to peep at the engine, glanced astern to see that the 
cutter full of armed men was fast to the stern-post, 
cast an eye over the men in his own boat, and gave 
the word. " Go ahead," he said to Stever and 
Stotesbury, the engineers. They gave her the 
throttle ; the engines puffed softly once or twice, the 
wheel began to churn under the stern, and the 
picket boat moved out into the dark waters of the 
Sound. The officers lining the rail of the Otsego 
watched them out of sight, and turned away without 
a word. 

"Well, Billy, how do you feel?" chuckled Lieu- 
tenant Gushing, putting a long lean arm around 
Howarth's shoulders as he took a seat beside him in 
the stern. 

" Fine. Great," returned Howarth. 

A scurry of rain lashed across their faces. " Great 
night for it, Billy," commented Gushing, in a low 
voice. 

" Best kind of a night," assented Billy Howarth. 



222 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The engine was purring contentedly under the 
tarpaulins. There was not a light on the boat, and 
not a sound but the mutter of the engine, an occa- 
sional whisper between the men, and the lisping rip- 
ple of the waves against her bows as she pushed her 
nose up-stream. 

Lieutenant Gushing was humming a tune so 
softly that no one heard him but Howarth, sitting 
close beside him. " Good thing there's no moon to- 
night," he whispered, presently, breaking off his 
tune. " Remember how the moon came near play- 
ing the mischief with us that night we went after the 
Raleigh, down on New River ? " 

" The moon is made for love, and not for war," 
observed Howarth. 

The silence was broken again by a low chuckle 
from Gushing, *' I'd like to have been around when 
that storekeeper down by Wilmington found out 
that he'd had a Yankee sailor for a customer that 
day you rigged up in the cracker's clothes," he 
whispered. 

Howarth joined his quiet laugh. " God must 
have some plans for us," he said. " He's brought 
us through some pretty tight places." 

" Yes, but we're rather stretching things to-night, 
old man. We mustn't depend upon Him too much 
to see us through this." 

As they pushed through the water they could 
hear the occasional tread of a Gonfederate sentry on 
the banks of the stream. Here and there ahead of 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 223 

them the ruddy glow of watch-fires blurred into the 
night. The wind was rising, sending the rain whip- 
ping along the water and stirring the river into a 
myriad indistinct noises that blurred the sounds the 
little picket boat made. Gushing leaned forward, 
lifted the tail of a tarpaulin that covered the engine, 
very carefully, and whispered to Stotesbury, the en- 
gineer. " Cut her down a little, Stotesbury," he 
said. " We've got to be mighty quiet in through 
here. The banks are coming pretty close." 

The purring of the engine subsided into a dull 
rumble. The slash of the wheel through the water 
became no more than a faint plashing, which might 
have been made by the little whitecaps that were 
blossoming out on the waves. The waves plumped 
against the prow of the boat and bubbled away 
on either side. The men could not be heard to 
breathe. 

" Say ! " exclaimed Cushing, under his breath, 
leaning a hand on Howarth's shoulder. *' We won't 
blow up the Albemarle I " 

Howarth turned toward him quickly, trying to 
make out his face through the darkness. That was 
not at all like Lieutenant Cushing. " What do you 
mean ? " he said, sharply. 

" We'll capture her 1 " answered Cushing. 

" Oh," said Howarth, relieved. 

Cushing chuckled again. " Gee whiz, Billy 1 
What would the boys of the fleet say if they saw us 
coming down the river in her, with the stars and 



224 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

stripes at the gaff ? I'll bet you they'd cut and run 
for it. What do you think ? " 

Billy grinned until his white teeth shone through 
the night. " They wouldn't believe it, Gushing." 

" It just struck me as a good idea," Gushing went 
on, becoming more serious. " It seems a shame to 
blow her up. She's too good for that. We could 
use her very well. I think we'll run off with her." 

" How will you do it ? " asked Howarth. He did 
not speak from doubt, but from a desire to learn his 
lieutenant's plans. 

" We'll land a little below her and board her from the 
wharf. We'll do it so quickly that they won't know 
what has happened until we are headed down-stream 
with her. Billy, you can do anything if you do it 
quickly. The more absurd the adventure is, the 
easier it is to do it. It's the last thing they will be 
expecting." 

" The Johnnies are pretty strong around her," sug- 
gested Howarth, not by way of discouragement, but 
to remind Gushing of all the things that should be 
considered beforehand. 

"The more the better," answered Gushing. 
" That makes it easier. If there were only forty 
of them, they would be ready for anything, but if 
there are a thousand, as there probably are, they 
will feel secure in their numbers. Remember the 
time we ran off with the engineer at Smithville ? We 
would have got General Hebert just as easy if he 
hadn't given us his heels. That shows you what 



" ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN " 225 



you can do if you do the unexpected." Gushing 
could not help chuckling at the reminiscence. 

" If you want to try it you can count on all the 
boys," was the only comment Howarth made further. 

" Hist 1 " warned Gushing. " Hush." 

The guard schooner, anchored near the wreck of 
the Southfield, suddenly loomed up through the 
darkness. Gushing shoved the helm hard over, and 
swung the boat closer inshore ; so close to the shore 
that the men in her could hear a couple of Gonfeder- 
ate soldiers swearing at the wind and rain. 

" They'll have more than that to scold about, be- 
fore we come back," said Gushing, leaning over to 
whisper into the ear of Howarth. Howarth nodded 
his head by way of reply. 

It was a critical moment. Much depended on 
their getting by the schooner. It was only a mile to 
the wharf where the Albemarle was tied. If any of 
the men on the schooner should hear them, or see 
them, and fire a shot, it would bring the entire Gon- 
federate force in Golumbus down about the ears of 
the fifteen men in the torpedo launch. 

Gushing lifted his head high to listen ; his breath 
was as even as that of a babe, and his pulse beat as 
steadily as a sleeping man's. 

There was a faint clank of an arm in the cutter, 
towing behind. The armed men there were restless 
with anxiety, expecting their work to come at any 
instant. It was understood that at the least sign of 
discovery from the schooner the cutter would be 



226 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

cast off, and the men in her must smother any at- 
tempt of the guard to set off signal roclcets. 

Gushing, hearing the sound behind him, swore 
softly under his breath, and listened more intently. 
From the direction of the schooner, now abreast, 
could be heard the heels of a sentinel pacing her 
decks, and the gurgling plash of waves against her 
sides. Slowly the picket boat drew ahead. The 
danger was past. 

The engine, turning evenly, without a sigh or 
sound, drove them farther and farther toward the 
supreme moment. The river was narrowing down ; 
it was not one hundred and fifty yards wide now. 
Gushing kept the middle of the stream. ** Darn 
their old fires, anyway," he whispered, presently. 
The dull glow of the watch-fires, kept continually 
on both banks of the river near the ram, shone in 
the sky, and a ruddy gleam from them stole now 
and then across the running water. 

It was a lucky thing that on that night, of all 
nights, the fires had been allowed to burn very low. 
They were scarcely more than heaps of embers. 
Gushing observed that as they rounded the last 
bend between them and the Albemarle, and came 
into view of the fires. " I take it all back," he said, 
gaily, in a whisper. " They have behaved very 
well with their fires to-night." 

Gushing picked out paths on the face of the 
stream that were least illuminated by the fires and 
crept inshore. " We're going to take her, boys," he 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 227 

passed the word. " We're going to take her back 
with us." 

The boys were all glad of that. They did not 
say so, but there was a feeling in the wet air that 
they were glad. 

Gushing whispered to Stotesbury again, and the 
engineer closed down the engine another notch ; it 
made no more sound now than a sleeping kitten. 

Out of the darkness loomed the Albemarle, lying 
against her wharf. There was not a sound aboard 
her ; not a light. Dim, weird in the gloom, she 
looked like some huge monster slumbering ; hunch- 
shouldered, black, ugly, and deadly. 

Gushing headed for the shore, a few yards below 
the monster. " By cracky, Billy, we're going to get 
away with it 1 " he whispered, gleefully. 

Suddenly the silence of the night was shattered 
by the loud barking of a dog not far from the shore. 
The beast howled and yelped ; each yelp cut through 
the night like a whip. Gushing, standing now in 
the stern of the boat, clenched his two fists and 
shook with anger. He waited, praying that each 
howl would be the last ; shrinking from them, as 
they kept on, as though they were blows in his face. 
A tingle of excitement could be felt running through 
the men in the boat. Gushing swore. 

Another sound entered the stillness of the night. 
There was the hurried tread of a sentry on board the 
Albe^narle, the thump of a musket butt against the 
rail. " Boat ahoy ! What boat is that ? " came a hail. 



228 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

No answer. A moment of supreme suspense ; not 
a breath was drawn on the two boats. Another 
challenge. A shot ; the pink flash of it leaped and 
died. 

In the instant the midnight hush burst into a mad 
medley of noises. A dozen dogs took up the cry of 
their fellow ; muskets popped up and down the river 
banks ; bells jangled, and the alarm rattle raised its 
horrid noise above the sudden din. The watch-fires 
were already beginning to spring up, heaped with 
fresh fuel. 

No chance now for the surprise. 

" Ahead, fast ! " shouted Gushing to Stotesbury 
and Stever. At the same instant he cut the tow- 
line, setting the cutter adrift. 

The good engine hummed ; the boat churned 
through the water, headed directly for the Albemarle. 

As they came closer, Gushing saw, by the glare 
of the watch-fires, the long black thread of the log 
boom circling his prey. He was almost upon them. 

You will find that men who do great things think 
quickly. Perhaps they do not have to think at all ; 
perhaps they know what to do without thinking. 
Gushing figured out in one mental flash that the 
logs must have been in the water for some time, and 
that they were surely slimy. He comprehended 
that if he went into them head on, with enough 
speed, at least the bow of his boat would slide over 
them and give him a chance wdth his torpedo boom ; 
for now there was no hope of capturing the ram. 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 229 

With a thrust of the wheel he swung out into the 
stream, made a wide circle, and came charging on 
again, full tilt. 

As he headed for the ram the second time, Gush- 
ing ran to the bow, and stood by the torpedo spar. 
There was a rattle of musketry on board the ram. 
Bullets wheezed about the ears of the men in the 
boat ; Cushing's coat was filled with buckshot ; a 
ball knocked off the sole of his shoe. " Let 'em 
have it, Mr. Gay," he said, and the howitzer spat 
canister into the wreath of sputtering gun-fire that 
fringed the decks of the Albemarle. 

Something snapped aboard the ram. Gushing 
understood ; the great hundred pound rifled cannon 
had missed fire. ** Thank you just the same," said 
Gushing, with a comical bow in the direction of the 
snap. 

" Leave the ram I " he shouted aloud. " Get 
ashore ! We're going to blow you up ! " There 
was the same mockery in the shouted warning as 
you may hear any Saturday afternoon in fall on a 
football field ; Gushing was at bottom a boy, as I 
have said several times. 

There was a dull, heavy blow against the bow of 
the little boat ; she lurched into the air forward. For 
a moment she hung there, and then slid ahead into 
the water inside the barrier, the logs sinking beneath 
her weight. 

It is not an easy thing to do, to swing a long boom 
on its hinge, thrust the free end of it under water, 



230 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

feel around for the bottom of a boat, and get the ex- 
act spot that you want to reach. It is not easy in 
any circumstances. It is much less easy in a dark 
night, when you can scarcely see the vessel in front 
of you ; when your own boat is bobbing about ; 
when men are potting at you with muskets, and 
when you are conscious of a hundred-pound cannon 
in process of being fired at you not a dozen yards 
from your head. You must be quick, or you will 
get so close that you can only slap the other boat 
with the side of your boom ; and you must be quick, 
or the hundred-pound gun will blow you and all your 
friends into jelly. 

Gushing was quick, because he was in no hurry. 
He lowered the spar on its hinge, thrust it under the 
overhang of the ram's stern, raised it until he felt 
the thump of the torpedo against the ship's bottom, 
and then he pulled the string that fired it off. 

It was as though the river was turning upside 
down. There was a blubbering roar beneath the 
water, and a lump of it hove over the decked bow 
of the little craft. At the same instant there was an 
unmufBed roar from the sides of the monster as the 
hundred pounder went off. 

But the gun was too late. In the instant before it 
shot, the Albemarle rose with a shuddering heave, 
flopped once or twice like a dying whale, and began 
to settle in the water. The lifting of the ship by the 
torpedo destroyed the aim of the great gun, and the 
hundred pounds of canister whistled off into the river. 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 231 

The Confederates aboard were calling on the men 
in the boat to surrender. There was no chance to 
get her out ; she was swamped with water ; her fires 
were drowned, and she was hemmed in by the boom, 

" Save yourselves, lads 1 " shouted Cushing. 

He took off his sword and pistol, and threw them 
into the water. He removed his coat and shoes. 
With a last look at the work he had done, he leaped 
over side, and struck out down the river. One or 
two followed him. 

The banks both sides were lined with yelling Con- 
federates. The watch-fires, burning brilliantly now, 
threw a light on the whole river. There was no 
chance to land. He kept on down-stream. Musket- 
balls whisked into the water about him. He would 
swim as long as he could, and then take his chances 
on going ashore. He glanced over his shoulder 
once more at the wreck of the Albemarle, now settled 
to the bottom, and chuckled at the sight. 

He had swum half a mile. He was beginning to 
grow tired. His wrist hurt him. He had been shot 
there at some time during the recent event. He had 
not known it at the time. He would not try to get 
any farther down, for fear he would not have strength 
enough to make the land. There was no sign of 
Confederates opposite where he was swimming. He 
turned inshore. 

He had not gone many labored strokes when he 
saw some one struggling in the water close to him, 
" That you, Billy ? " he asked. 



232 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

" It's me," came a gasping answer. " God help 
me, I'm done for." 

Gushing recognized the voice as that of Wood- 
man, his fireman. " Brace up," he said, reaching 
out a hand and grasping the man by the sleeve just 
as he was sinking. 

Woodman's head was under. He struggled it 
free of the water. " I can't. Great God ! I'm done 
for." 

He said no more. For a space Gushing tried to 
drag him through the water toward the dark loom 
of the shore, but he could not. He was too tired ; 
they would both drown. He loosed his hold, and 
the man sank. 

The tide, running down the river, swept him with 
it. He fought with all his remaining strength ; the 
shore drew no closer, it seemed. " Gome, now. 
Gushing," he heard himself saying. " You'll never 
get that stripe unless you get ashore." 

A dozen times he felt himself sinking ; felt himself 
giving up ; felt himself desiring to go beneath the 
water, and have an end of it, but he still struck 
toward the shore. At last, when each sweep of his 
arms and each feeble kick of his legs cost him pain 
in body and brain, he felt ground under him, and 
tumbled out on the bank, where he lay, wet, cold, 
exhausted. 

Lying there, he became conscious gradually of a 
regular foot tread going and coming not far off. He 
stirred his senses to listen, and made out the pacing 



" ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN " 233 

of a sentry. He had come ashore on the Plymouth 
side of the river under the brows of a Confederate 
fort. 

He knew that if he lay there until morning he 
would be discovered. Weak as he was, and faint 
from the pain and loss of blood occasioned by the 
wound in his wrist, he made up his mind that he 
would get out of the vicinity of the fort without 
delay. 

Not far off he saw the edge of a bushy swamp, an 
excellent place in which to hide. But the way there 
lay close to the sentry's beat. He waited until the 
fellow was going away from him, sprang to his feet, 
and made a dash for the swamp. Before he had 
covered half the distance the sentry reached the end 
of his beat, and turned. Cushing dropped into the 
grass and waited. 

As he lay in the grass waiting, he heard more 
footsteps coming toward him. He hid his face and 
white sleeves under his body and lay without breath- 
ing. Four men passed so close that he could have 
reached out and touched the one nearest him. 
They were discussing the wreck of the Albemarle. 
"She's a goner. It's hopeless," he heard one of 
them say. They were too excited to observe the 
man who had furnished them with a subject for 
conversation. 

When they had passed, Cushing wriggled through 
the grass, not caring to venture another dash, and 
at last reached the swamp, where he rested until 



234 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

daybreak. As it grew lighter he made his way 
through the swamp, heading down-stream. It was 
a long way out of the Confederate country ; he 
proceeded very cautiously, stopping now and then 
to listen whether any one was moving near him. 
The bushes made a thick screen. He avoided all 
paths, seeking out the most obscure and densest 
parts of the swamp for his course. 

Presently he came to a corn field. The corn field 
gave quite as good protection from sight as the 
swamp, and the walking was better. Moreover, it 
was more nearly in the route which he knew he 
must follow to get back to the river opposite the 
Union vessels. He quarreled with the luck that 
brought him ashore on this side of the river, instead 
of the other, as he made up his mind to cross the 
corn field. 

He crossed, and was just emerging carefully 
from the other side when he beheld the legs and 
lower body of a man between the stalks of standing 
corn, not ten feet from him. It was clear that the 
man saw him, and was watching him. 

Cushing was without arms, and was fairly ex- 
hausted, but he decided that he would not be taken 
without a fight, and made himself ready for an en- 
counter. The next moment the corn leaves were 
pushed aside and a black face surmounted by a mat 
of white wool peered through at him, " Lord a 
massy, you-all suah done frighten dis poor 
niggah I " said a voice. " Foh de fan's sake, where 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 235 

you been?" the darky continued, frightened again 
as he had another look at the hatless, shoeless, 
draggled specimen of humanity standing staring at 
him. Gushing was muddy from crown to sole ; his 
clothing was torn, and there was blood on his shirt. 

He laughed as he saw the old fellow's growing 
terror. " I'm no ghost. Sambo," he said. " I'm 
Lieutenant Gushing, United States Navy, and I've 
just been up in Golumbus attending to a little matter 
of business with the ram Albemarle^ 

" Fore de Lord, Massah Gushion, Ah suah done 
t' ought Ah was a gonner dat time," chuckled the old 
negro, reassured by the sound of a human voice and 
a laugh coming from the spectre that had risen be- 
fore him out of the corn field. " You-all's sure been 
t'rough somefin outdacious, I reckon." His mouth 
hung open with curiosity. 

Gushing gratified his desire for information until 
he had taken the edge ofi his appetite, and the old 
fellow was willing to go over to Golumbus and find 
out more definitely what had happened to the 
Albeniarle. " You-all jest lie low here till I come 
back, Mistah Gushion," he said. " Ah'U find out 
for suah, 'deed Ah will." 

" And say, Sambo," Gushing called after him, 
" if you run across anything to eat, you might bring 
it along with you." 

" 'Deed Ah will, Mistah Gushion, 'deed Ah will," 
said the darky, wagging his head by way of added 
emphasis as he shambled off through the corn. 



236 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

In due time he came back, his face adorned with 
a glittering grin. " What news ? " asked Gushing. 

" Mighty good news, massa," chuckled the old 
fellow. " De big iron ship's gone to de bottom, 
suah, and de folks says she's never gwine ter git up 
ag'in, nohow." 

" Good ! She's done for, then ? Now, old man, 
tell me how I can get back to the ships." 

"Don' you-all want nufBn to eat?" suggested the 
old negro, making mysterious advances with his 
hands into the bosom of his shirt. 

Gushing, reminded, said that he was ready to eat 
anything, whereupon the negro produced a corn 
cake and a piece of a cold boiled sweet potato. 
Gushing ate them both greedily while the old fellow 
rattled on about this and that. 

" Now, tell me how I can get back to the ships," 
said Gushing, for the second time, when he had 
finished the food his friend had brought him, 

" Well, massa," began the negro, full of impor- 
tance, " you jes' creep back through dis yere corn 
field tell you come to de swamp, and den you turn 
sharp to youah right, and keep straight ahead, and 
den de good Lord knows where you-all '11 come to, 
'cause I cain't rightly tell. But it'll be somewhere 
near where you want to go." 

Gushing laughed as he thanked him for the in- 
formation, and set out once more. The swamp was 
a tangle of underbrush and creeping vines. He 
could not see ten feet ahead of him. His only guide 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 237 

was the sun. But one thing was reasonably certain. 
No one would be likely to find him. 

At two o'clock he broke out upon the edge of a 
creek. He lay down behind the bushes on the bank 
to rest before he swam it. As he was lying there 
he heard several voices down-stream. They were 
drawing closer. He crept farther back in the bushes, 
and watched. 

Presently seven Confederate soldiers came loafing 
up the stream in a skiff. They, too, were discussing 
the destruction of the Albemarle. " We picked most 
of 'em up out of the water," he heard one of them tell- 
ing the others, " but the one that led 'em got away." 

" Drowned, I reckon," suggested another. 

" The consarned Yank ! " exclaimed a third, in- 
dignantly. " Ef I could lay my hands on him I'd 
make him dance a plenty for it, consarn me ef I 
wouldn't ! " Cushing could barely refrain from call- 
ing out some taunt to the fellow, but he forced him- 
self to be content with a quiet chuckle. 

He waited for them to pass, but they did not pass. 
They stopped rowing, and looked this way and that, 
" Might as well land here," said one. " It's as good 
a place as any." His eyes were fixed on the bank 
ten feet from where Cushing lay in hiding. 

" Naw," protested another. " T'other side's bet- 
ter, I know a spot up yonder where we can stretch 
out and take it easy for a spell." 

The ensuing wrangle was exceedingly interesting to 
Lieutenant Cushing. In the end the opposite bank 



238 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

prevailed. They paddled over to it, climbed out, 
made their boat fast, picked up their grub, and went 
up a little path that led over the bank. 

When they were out of sight Gushing crept down 
to the creek, waded in, swam across, untied the boat, 
climbed in, pushed ofT, and rowed down-stream, 
laughing to himself over the mental picture he drew 
of the seven men when they should return to resume 
their journey in the skiff. 

It was then two o'clock in the afternoon. At 
eleven o'clock that night the lookout on the Valley 
City, one of the Union boats in the fleet, saw a skiff 
slowly drawing close over the waters of the Roanoke. 
" Ship ahoy ! " came a shout from the skiff, as he 
watched it, with his musket cocked. They never felt 
safe from tricks those days. 

"Who goes there?" demanded the lookout. 

" A friend. Take me up." 

A friend ! What would a friend be doing out 
there at that time of night? The lookout called a 
superior. There was brief consultation. Presently 
boats were lowered and manned ; the men carried 
arms. Meanwhile the Valley City was getting under 
way. She was not to be trapped so easily. 

The boats approached the skiff, ready for anything. 
" Who are you ? " they hailed, as they drew closer. 

The answer came back : " Lieutenant Gushing, or 
what is left of me." 

" Gushing ! " The voice that had hailed was ex- 
cited. " And the Albemarle ? " 



"ANOTHER STRIPE OR A COFFIN" 239 

" Will never trouble you again," was the rejoinder. 
" She lies in a muddy grave at the bottom of the 
Roanoke." 

The men in the boats bent to their oars with a 
will. When they came near the skiff they could see 
no one in her. As they drew up alongside and 
looked into her, they saw him, senseless from fatigue, 
lying on the bottom. 

He had got another stripe. 



CHAPTER X 
THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 

William Halford, coxswain of the captain's 
gig on the little side-wheel gunboat Saginaw^ 
knocked the ashes out of his pipe against the capstan 
on the forecastle head and turned to the mess boy 
who was standing beside him. " So you've not 
heard of Ocean Island, lad?" he said. "There are 
a lot of poor fellows who would be glad if they could 
say as much." 

"Why, what is it?" asked the boy, expecting 
some of the sea lore with which this man delighted 
to fill his ears. 

" Ocean Island, my lad, is a bit of a trap set by the 
evil one for such as us who follow the sea," Halford 
went on, casting an eye weather-ward and up and 
down the decks of the little ship, from force of habit. 
" 'Tis but a pile of sand gathered on a hunch of 
rocks away out here at the edge of the string of is- 
lands that is scattered through these waters ; a foot- 
hill, ye might say, of a range of mountains under 
the sea. One end of the range, near two thousand 
mile to the eastward, is the Sandwich Islands, and 
Midway, where we have been making soundings and 
deepening the harbor entrance, is another peak in 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 241 

the long ridge that is high enough to stick its head 
up through the water." 

"How big is it?" 

" Ocean Island ? No bigger than your thumb, so 
to speak. A strip of sand, I tell ye, lad, with no 
water on it, and nothing green, and only now and 
then a stray bird ; a duck, perhaps, or a goony, or 
booby ; and a few seal, odd times. All around it are 
reefs that chew the swells into suds, all manner of 
weather. Oh, it's a sweet place for any ship to 
stumble over in the night, and there's many a poor 
lad whose bones have whitened on that sand and 
been buried beneath the drifts of it. I wish you better 
luck than ever to be cast ashore there, John Policy." 

"What are we going there for?" asked the boy, 
with the curiosity of youth. 

" On the chance that there may be some ship- 
wrecked men there now," returned Halford. " Ocean 
Island is out of the track of all trade, and a crew 
would starve to death there many times over before 
any vessel might happen that way. The old man 
knows it well, and is taking a run over there before 
he goes back home, on the chance that there is some 
one there now needing help. It's only a matter of 
a hundred miles or so from Midway. We should 
be there by daylight in the morning, if nothing hap- 
pens." Your old sailor will always say : " If nothing 
happens," knowing how many things may happen 
between the evening of one day and the morning of 
the next. 



242 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The Sagiiiazv was a side-wheel steamer of 300 
tons burden in the United States Navy, mounting 
two guns, under command of Commander Mont- 
gomery Sicard, to whom Halford, after the fashion 
of sailors, had referred as "the old man." All 
through the summer of 1870 the Saguiaiv had been 
engaged in taking soundings of the harbor entrance 
at Midway Island, and deepening it. Now, late in 
October, the season was coming to a close and the 
appropriation of money for carrying on the work 
was running low, so the Saginaiv was starting home. 
But on the way, as Halford had told Policy, she was 
cruising over to Ocean Island to see if any ship- 
wrecked sailors were there ; for Ocean Island was 
all that Halford had said of it. 

The SagmaWf like all steamers of her time, was 
rigged to carry enough sail to drive her when the 
wind was right, and she was slipping along now un- 
der full canvas, with the fires banked under her 
boilers and her steam under no head at all. The 
long blue swells of the mid-Pacific, swinging softly 
under her keel, were brilliant with the afternoon sun 
of the tropics — Midway being not many degrees 
above the Tropic of Cancer — but there was a sug- 
gestion in the air of the colder blasts that would 
sweep those seas in a month or two. 

Just as Halford was on the point of launching 
forth in a proper tale of shipwreck and death on 
Ocean Island, eight bells went on the bridge and 
was taken up by the bell on the forecastle head. It 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 243 

was the beginning of Halford's watch on deck, and 
he swung down the companionway that descended 
to the main deck, leaving Policy to follow on his 
way to the galley, disappointed in missing the story 
that he saw coming. 

When the crew turned in for the night, the breeze 
was still fresh and fair, and the Saginaw was bowl- 
ing along nicely, making fine weather of it. The 
long Pacific swells were running regularly under her 
keel. The wind, which had been fresh and steady 
all day, had kicked up a bit of a sea, but, from the 
sailors' point of view, it was smooth. You will never 
get a sailor to say that the sea is rough until he gets 
ashore and tells about it. 

The crew was in high spirits, full of jokes and 
pranks, as crews always are when homeward bound. 
Danger was as far from their thoughts as though 
they already were safe in their beds at home, for all 
that they were rushing down through an unlighted 
sea upon Ocean Island. For was not the Saginazv 
a staunch little craft, although she was small, and 
was not Commander Sicard, the *' old man," a good 
old salt who knew the sea and all its tricks ? 

William Halford was on the lookout from ten at 
night until midnight. The Saginazv was still sailing 
steadily on her course, headed due west, and making 
an easy six knots, when he went below. Before he 
turned in, Halford took a look at the log, out of 
curiosity, and made a rough computation. " You'll 
see your little island by daylight," he told John 



244 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Polley, whom he found awake in his hammock, too 
excited with the thoughts of going home and the 
evil report of Ocean Island, to sleep easily. " And 
you can thank your stars that you will have a good 
ship's bottom under you when you set eyes on it," 
added Halford, as he sought out his hammock and 
turned in. 

Halford was awakened some time in the night by 
the sound of the boatswain's whistle piping all hands 
on deck. He sat up abruptly. It was still dark, as 
he could see by the ship's lantern that blurred holes 
in the blackness of the berth-deck. Overhead was 
the scurrying of feet and the sound of voices lifted 
in quick command. The noises of the sea beating 
against the timbers of the vessel were not the noises 
of the pulsing and softly slipping swells of the high 
seas running evenly under her keel. There was the 
lashing hiss of crested waves and blows against the 
ship's sides that sent shivers through her. 

For a brief moment Halford thought that a sudden 
squall had struck them, but in the next his knowl- 
edge of the sea told him it was no squall. The 
waves whipped against the sides in too rapid succes- 
sion ; the craft jerked and lurched too sharply. A 
misgiving seized him. He leaped out of his ham- 
mock and hurried on deck, shaking John Polley 
awake as he passed him. 

In a glance Halford saw that a change had come 
over the sea. High crested waves swung past with 
a mighty rush, following one another closely. Their 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 245 

flanks were sharp and steep. The little Saginaw 
was twisting and pitching among them ; combers 
climbed her as every sea swept past. The breeze 
was not stronger than it had been. One thing only 
could cause those waves. ** Breakers ! " exclaimed 
Halford, to himself. 

Men were aloft, taking in sail. Officers hurried 
up and down the deck, shouting orders. Com- 
mander Sicard was on the bridge, calm and alert. 
Down in the boiler room was the clanging sound of 
the firemen stirring their banked fires in an effort to 
get up steam. There was no excitement aboard ; 
only orderly haste. 

Halford leaped into the rigging and scrambled up 
to give a hand to the furling of the sail. From 
aloft, as he climbed, he looked out over the raging 
breakers. At a little distance ahead the waves 
broke utterly in a crash of foam, and ran down 
smoothly beyond into calm water. Lying long and 
sinister in the midst of the calm water was an island ; 
so much Halford could see by the light of the stars. 
That it was Ocean Island he had no doubt. Cur- 
rents were many and treacherous in those waters ; 
one of them must have swept the Saginaw along 
her course faster than the log showed. 

"Where are we?" came from beside him as he 
leaned across the yard, his feet far behind him on 
the foot-rope, his nails clawing the stiff, hard sail- 
ful of wind. It was John Policy ; the lad had fol- 
lowed him aloft. 



246 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

" Ocean Island," grunted Halford between teeth 
set in his struggle with the obstinate sail. " Go be- 
low I " It was no place for a mess boy. 

" It isn't morning yet," observed the lad, puzzled. 

The distance between the little vessel and the last 
mad crashing of the breakers was lessening with 
sickening swiftness. Down below could be heard 
the rattle and clatter of the firemen, raking their 
fires, trying to get steam on her in time. 

" Get below ! " snapped Halford to Polley. 
" You're in the way here." The Saginaw was 
lurching horribly ; John could do nothing but cling 
for his life to the jack-stay. 

But the boy in him persisted in wanting to know 
all about it. "Are we going to be wrecked?" he 
asked, excitedly, his mind full of visions of what 
that meant on Ocean Island. 

Halford was on the brink of a savage answer, but 
he relented. " Get below, I tell you ! " was all he 
said. 

Smoke was beginning to wind in larger volume 
out of the funnel. The sails were flapping on all the 
yards, spilling the wind, which no longer urged her 
on toward the reef. In a little time there would be 
enough steam to back her out of danger. In a little 
time ; but she was drifting fast toward the final 
breaking of the waves where the reef lay. 

John could not move. Men were between him 
and the mast ; his short legs could scarcely reach 
the foot-rope, which jerked and swayed perilously 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 247 

as the sailors fought the sails into submission. The 
little steamer continued to drive before the waves. 
The men alow and aloft had done all they could ; 
now all depended on the grim and grimy firemen 
fighting to quicken their fires down in the dark hold. 
Smoke was beginning to pour more and more out 
of the funnel. It was a race with destruction. 

Just as hope was beginning to brighten, one huge 
breaker, creeping up astern, lifted the little ship in 
its curling fingers, raised her high in the air, twisted 
her around, swept her on with a shout of water, and 
flung her down on the rocky bottom as a terrier 
flings down a rat that it has shaken. The descent 
was sickening ; the jolt when she struck tore John 
Polley from his hold on the jack-stay, and he would 
have fallen if Halford had not grabbed and held him. 

There was a crunching sound from the entrails of 
the ship ; she groaned horribly, like a thing alive 
that has received its death-blow, and knows it. One 
sharp shout arose from a dozen throats, and stopped. 
The noise of the hissing waves, the crashing of the 
broken craft, the cries of the officers on deck giving 
quick commands, made the following hush seem 
more empty than complete silence. 

The Saginaw ceased lurching and twisting with 
an awful suddenness. She lay steadily, a thing 
dead. The combing breakers swept over her decks ; 
she no longer rose to them ; excepting that parts of 
her heaved now and then with a slow, low groan. 

The sailors clambered out of the rigging. The 



248 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

vessel was already breaking up when they reached 
the deck. Her bottom had been completely crushed 
in by the impact against the reef. Parts of her 
weather bulwarks were going ; the weather boats 
had all been smashed or carried away. 

Hard, bitter work was ahead of them all. Their 
only hope was the island ; the little desert island of 
drifted sand, where no green thing grew, where 
there was no water, and where no ship came through 
long months and months. Every succeeding wave 
tore off pieces of the vessel ; the water about them 
was filled with wreckage. Huge hunks of her fell 
away, and lay apart on the reef. She was breaking 
up rapidly. 

But her very going to pieces helped them in 
what they had to do. The parts that lay about on 
the reef, or floated close by in the water, shielded 
the stricken vessel from the force of the waves. 
They could not get at her directly, as they had 
done. They still broke across her decks, but not so 
fiercely. 

The men turned their energies toward getting out 
what boats were left. There was the captain's gig, 
an old cutter, and a dinghy, battered and strained, 
but still safe enough. The rest of the boats that had 
not been swept away were so torn asunder that they 
could not have lived two minutes in the surf. 

By great labor, full of danger, they at last suc- 
ceeded in getting the gig into the water, and filling 
it with men. Those left aboard saw her pass safely 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 249 

through the surf across the reef, emerge on the 
smooth water beyond and pull for the island. At 
last the two other small craft were got overboard, 
manned, and pulled across the reef and to the island. 
The vessel had struck at three o'clock in the morn- 
ing ; it was daylight before the crew were all ashore. 
The captain was the last to leave. 

The crew on the island w^as safe from the waves. 
That great danger was past. But looming far 
ahead of them, and not very far off, was another, no 
less threatening, no less certain, for all that it was a 
slow and subtle danger. They were ninety-six men, 
all told, and they were on a desert island, with no 
food, no chance to get any, no water, and no pros- 
pect of a vessel coming that way to take them off. 

Commander Sicard sent a boat, early in the morn- 
ing, to see what might be saved from the wreck. 
When the boat was half-way across the lagoon be- 
tween the island and the reef, those in her set up a 
shouting. They could see, through the clear, still 
water, boxes and barrels of provisions that had been 
washed over the reef. 

Other boats were sent, with some hooks and ropes 
that were procured from the wreck. The men pulled 
up much of the stufl^ on the bottom. It was soaked 
with brine, but it could be eaten. It was only 
enough to last them two months, on quarter rations. 
At the end of two months, what ? And they had no 
water. 

Commander Sicard soon supplied that want. He 



250 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

had his men drag an old boiler out of the wreck, 
and set it up. They filled it with salt water, started 
a fire under it, evaporated the brine, caught the 
steam in pipes, and condensed it into water again. 
It was fresh, of course, and they drank it. That 
gave them the whole sea to drink. There was 
enough of the wreckage already ashore to keep 
them in fuel for a longer time than they would 
need it. 

Members of the crew were detailed to kill what 
birds they could find, and seals. Of these the cook 
made soup. The bottom of the lagoon was stripped 
of shell-fish. Some other fish were caught, but they 
were few, and not very good food. Some of the 
fish in tropical waters cannot be eaten at all. 

All this helped, of course ; but there were ninety- 
six men to be fed. Ninety-six men, with little 
chance of a rescue. That fact filled the mind of 
every man, as he lay on the barren sand of the little 
island. 

Midway Island was only a hundred miles away, 
but there was nothing there. The nearest port 
where they could go for assistance was Honolulu, 
fifteen hundred miles to the eastward. It was their 
only chance. Some one must go to Honolulu. 

" I will take the gig and go," said Lieutenant John 
G. Talbot, sailing-master of the Saginaw. 

*• I will go with you, if you please, sir," said 
William Halford, coxswain of the captain's gig. 

"So will I, sir," said John Policy. Commander 



Iir 'II!": 



;piffr!!j|: 



!l !'!:' 


















THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 251 

Sicard shook his head at that ; John was only a boy. 
Halford comforted him with a smile and an arm 
about his shoulders. 

Others came forward, offering to go. Three of 
them were selected, making five in all to man the 
gig. Five was a large number to provision for the 
trip, but five could man the oars, if the wind failed, 
and save in time what they might consume in food. 
Also, five would be needed in case of bad weather. 

The gig was badly battered. It had settled in the 
water on the beach when they had finished their 
work on the wreck with it. It was dragged up on 
the sand, patched with pieces of wreckage, calked, 
and strengthened with new thwarts. A mast was 
stepped in it, and a suit of sails bent on. Another 
suit was stowed aboard, in case the first should be 
carried away. 

They put aboard her what provisions could be 
spared from the general store. There was enough 
to last the five men twenty-five days, on quarter 
rations. Three-fourths of it was a mixture of peas, 
beans, wheat, and rice, that had been fished off the 
bottom, dried in the sun, cooked, and put up in 
tins. It was wretched food, but it had the advantage 
of being nourishing and taking up little space. The 
balance of their provisions was dessicated potatoes. 
They had plenty of water put aboard in casks. 

In this crazy patch-work craft, provisioned as she 
was, the five men set out on November i8th. Those 
left behind gave them three cheers as they rowed 



252 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

across the lagoon and picked their way through the 
reef, and they gave back the cheers, with a will. 
There is much in a cheer. 

Once past the reef, they made sail. The northerly 
trade filled the canvas, the little gig heeled over, 
picked up her footing, and went bubbling and gur- 
gling through the gray waves on her long journey, 
dancing in the joy of motion as merrily as a yacht 
on a cruise. 

As the island dropped behind the rim of ocean 
astern and there was nothing in view but heaving 
water, the men in the gig felt how pitiably small 
they were, and how large was the Pacific. Ahead 
of them lay fifteen hundred miles of open sea, and 
winter was coming on. Not that winter would be 
very cold in those latitudes. But it was the season 
of gales. The little craft could not withstand the 
buffetings of many storms. She had no deck ; her 
gunwale at its highest point was only a few feet above 
the water. She had been strained and weakened by 
her experiences in the wreck ; her frail ribs and thin 
bottom seemed little enough to stand between them 
and a watery grave if the sea should become too 
angry. 

And storms would cause delay, if nothing worse. 
Time was precious. The crew of the Saginaw could 
last six weeks more on the little island, at the utmost. 
They had already been on the island three weeks 
when the gig left ; in the beginning they had had 
little more than two months' short rations. At the 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 253 

end of six weeks they must surely starve, unless the 
gig could make Honolulu in time to send them 
help. 

The weather came on nasty from the first. The sky 
was like tin, a surly wind snarled down from the north 
and northwest, sending hard waves against the tiny 
craft and drenching the men with spray. From the 
first hour they were soaked through. They did not 
mind that. They thought only of their errand, and 
the lives that depended on their success. The sea 
had challenged them and they had taken up the chal- 
lenge, with the joy that strong men have in a con- 
test. Their fighting spirit was aroused ; they were 
full of zealous enthusiasm. They smoked their pipes 
and spun yarns of the sea. 

On the first day out their courage was tried. 
When the time came for supper, one of the men, 
under the order of Lieutenant Talbot, opened a can 
of the stuff — the peas, beans, rice and wheat that 
had been fished up out of the water and cooked. 
As he inserted his knife through the cover there was 
a little wheezing pop from the contents of the can. 
The man widened his eyes and held the slit tin to 
his nose. A look of excitement came into his face. 
The others watched him silently as he tore his knife 
through the lid and bent it back. He sniffed again 
at the contents, and cast a glance of concern at his 
companions. " Spoiled ! " he said, briefly, with a 
sailor's oath. 

That was bad business. Three -fourths of all their 



254 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

provisions consisted of this mixture in the cans. Lieu- 
tenant Talbot took the tin, smelled of it, tasted it, 
made a wry face, and laid it on the bottom of the 
gig. " Let's have another," he said, reaching out. 

The sailor handed it to him. He opened and ex- 
amined it as he had the first, the men watching him 
closely as he did so. He shook his head and reached 
out for another can, without a word. The third was 
like the other two ; rotten. 

" We'll try it ; we must eat it if we can," he said, 
and took a mouthful. 

He passed the can about. They all ate, a little. 
The stufi was abominable. But they said nothing as 
they consumed the ration ; it was part of the fight. 

At midnight one of the men got up from the 
bottom, where he slept, and staggered aft. Halford 
was at the tiller. " I'm sick," said the man. 

" It's that stuff in the cans," Halford observed, 
and nothing more was said. The man presently lay 
down again, suffering, but silent. In the morning 
he was gray and weak, but he kept silence still. 

They began on another can for breakfast. The 
man who had been sick during the night tried to eat 
his ration, but could swallow no more than a mouth- 
ful or two. Lieutenant Talbot observed his difificulty. 
" We've got to eat it," he said. " We've nothing 
else but the dessicated potatoes." 

Before night all the crew were sick, excepting 
Halford. Still they ate the stuff. In three days 
they were so ill they could scarcely stand ; even 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 255 

Halford was feeling the effects of the poison in the 
food. Their sickness was increasing, 

" It's no use," said Lieutenant Talbot. " It will 
kill us." He ordered the remaining cans to be 
thrown overboard. 

They were only at the beginning of their voyage ; 
three-fourths of their stores were gone, but no one 
suggested that they return to the island. If they 
went back for more food, they would lose a precious 
week ; and there was no food to spare where they 
came from. 

^ On the evening of the third day Lieutenant Talbot 
opened the dessicated potatoes and gave each man 
a spoonful. " Mix it with water," he said. 

They made a cold mush of it, and ate in silence. 

That night Halford was at the tiller. He was not 
so weak and sick as the others, being stronger to 
resist. The rest of the crew were asleep in the 
bottom. 

As they slept Lieutenant Talbot went to Halford. 
'* Halford," he said, " I can count on you?" 

" For what, sir? " returned the coxswain, puzzled. 

"The men may want to turn back," went on the 
lieutenant. 

Halford shook his head emphatically. ** If any 
man says : * Go back,' I'll chuck him over, and glad 
to do it, sir." 

The lieutenant expressed his appreciation of the 
other's staunchness by a moment of silence. " It's 
pretty serious," he said, presently. " I could not 



256 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

blame them if they did want to return. Our po- 
tatoes will last us only twenty-five days, if I give 
them two spoonfuls a day. We have nothing else. 
They are already sick and weak." Lieutenant Tal- 
bot was as sick and weak as any, but he said noth- 
ing about himself. " It will be a pretty close call, 
either way. We may run out of rations, and we 
may all starve to death on them, if they do last. But 
we can't go back, Halford. We've got to get to 
Honolulu. It's our only chance. It's their only 
chance," with a nod of his head in the direction 
of the island where they had left the ninety-one of 
the Saginazu's crew waiting for them. 

" We'll make it, sir," asserted Halford. 

" You'll use your influence with the men, Hal- 
ford," Talbot went on. " They depend on you ; 
they believe in you." 

" Thank you, sir, but it won't be needed, sir," 
Halford returned. " They all knew what they were 
doing when they volunteered, and they'll die game, 
every one of them, never fear for that." 

" I'm not afraid they won't, Halford. But I 
wanted to speak to you. I wanted to tell you our 
situation, and have you explain it to the men, 
quietly. I'll tell them myself, of course, but I'd like 
to have you make a chance to prepare them, so the 
truth will not give them too much of a shock." 

" Aye, aye, sir," returned the coxswain, and 
Lieutenant Talbot turned in with the men. 

The wind had been freshening throughout the 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 257 

evening, and the sea had grown ugly. Halford, at 
the tiller, was on the constant lookout to prevent 
waves from breaking over the low sides of the gig. 
He was weak and sick, but the others were weaker 
and sicker than he, so he kept his post beyond the 
end of his watch, thinking to let them rest. He 
would wait until one of them woke up. 

He looked out over the tumbling sea, dark and 
ominous under the gray light of the few stars which 
the sea and cloudy sky caught and held. The 
loneliness oppressed him for a moment. He thought 
of the many, many leagues of these waste waters that 
they must traverse before they came to Honolulu. 
He thought of the men waiting for their rescue on 
the little island of sand ; of John Policy, the boy who 
worshiped him as a hero. He was proud of that 
worship ; he was very glad the boy had not been al- 
lowed to come. For a moment, thinking of the lad, 
he forgot his task. 

A comber that he had not seen approaching 
leaped up alongside, burst into a raging cataract, 
and dashed across the gig. It caught her by the 
stern and twisted her up into the wind, spilling the 
sails. Halford was nearly swept away. He thrust 
the tiller hard over, brought her back before the 
wind, dodged two other large combers, and straight- 
ened her out on her course again. He looked at 
the compass, to make sure that he was pointed right. 
He could not see the face of it. Then, for the first 
time he noticed that the lantern, which had been 



258 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

lashed close at hand, was not burning. He reached 
for it, thinking to light it again. It was gone. The 
sea had carried it away. Somewhere beneath those 
surges in their wake it was slowly drifting toward 
the bottom. Weird and unknown fishes were nos- 
ing it wonderingly. The fancy struck him : what 
would those fishes think of the bodies of five men 
floating down among them ? Perhaps there would 
be an old finny fellow in the company who had seen 
the corpse of a drowned sailor before and who 
would tell his companions what they were. But had 
any of them ever seen a lantern ? He laughed to 
himself over the fancy as he fumbled for a match 
with which he might read the compass. 

But his matches were all wet ; they would not take 
fire. There was nothing to be done but to steer by 
wind and wave, and wait for the morning light to 
show them their course on the needle. 

" There's one thing about losing the lantern," said 
Halford, in the morning, when the crew were dis- 
cussing it, which they did at length, for there was 
little enough for them to talk about. " There's one 
thing. . We can have that five gallons of sperm oil 
we brought to use for the lantern as a sauce on our 
porridge." 

They tried it that morning on their spoonfuls of 
dessicated potatoes soaked in water, but they were 
too sick and weak to retain it. All but Halford. 
He was stronger than the others. He ate it heartily. 
" Sorry, boys," he said, smacking his lips as though 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 259 

he iiked it. It was his habit to make the best of 
things. 

Day after day they dragged their weary way 
across the sea, with no ray of sunshine to warm and 
dry them, and give them cheer. Sometimes the 
wind only teased them with a vagrant puff now and 
then, and they tried their oars, feebly, gaining little. 
On other days it blew fresh, brisking at intervals into 
a storm which threatened every minute to swamp 
them. Weak as they were from illness and lack of 
food, they had to struggle to their feet and fight the 
storm, reefing sail, bailing ship, dodging huge waves. 
Always they were wet through ; always they were 
tossed about and beaten against each other by the 
floundering of their tiny ship. And when they could 
stand it no longer ; when their limp limbs sank be- 
neath them, they must arise and fight again, for the 
storm never wearied. 

One day the storm winds outdid themselves. 
Their force was so great that the voyagers took in all 
their sails, and the little gig drove under its bare 
pole. The rudder was not sufficient to keep them on 
their course, and they manned the oars. Seas came 
aboard continually. At last, one sea, more towering 
than its fellows, swept over them with a rush that 
jerked the oars out of their weakened grasp and 
carried them overboard. They left their seats on the 
thwarts and lay in the bottom of the boat, trusting to 
fate. They had done all they could do. And fate 
was good to them, for the wind soon blew itself out. 



26o BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

and the sea ran down. They made sail again and 
went on their course. 

Through all their struggle they felt the pangs of 
ever-growing hunger. Two spoonfuls a day, meas- 
ured out of their scanty store, was all they could 
have, and when that was eaten hunger still gnawed. 
Daily, hourly they grew weaker. Leaving one man 
to sail the boat, the others would lie in the bottom, 
unless the storm demanded of them to get up and 
fight, saying nothing, doing nothing, thinking noth- 
ing, like dumb animals, waiting. 

All but Halford. He was stronger than the others. 
He could eat the sperm oil, and he found it food. 
He stood his trick at the tiller, and often took the 
turns of the other men. He tried to cheer them with 
yarns and sailors' jokes ; he made light of their ex- 
periences, as though they were nothing. They paid 
no heed to him, lying in the bottom of the boat, 
thinking of nothing, saying nothing, save that now 
and then one of them would snarl out against Hal- 
ford's chatter. Halford would smile at that, for the 
outburst was a sign that fight was still left in the 
man. 

December came, and still they sailed, fighting 
their way across the trackless wilderness of gray 
water. A gaunt sight they would have been if any 
could have looked down on them. Four men, with 
faces gray as death and skin taut on their cheeks, 
staring with glistening eyes that saw nothing into 
the gray sky above, while the gray sea swirled be- 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 261 

neath. And a fifth, teeth set, tense, clutching the 
tiller and searching the horizon for something — any- 
thing. And over it all silence, an utter silence ; for 
by degrees Halford ceased to speak with his com- 
panions. The effort was too great. A gaunt, gaunt 
sight. 

Twenty-five days had passed since they left the 
island, and still they had not picked up the loom of 
the Sandwich Islands. Perhaps they had lost their 
reckoning. The sun had not been clear for taking 
their sights on any day, and Lieutenant Talbot was 
so weak, so sick, that he might have made an error 
in working out their position. 

Lieutenant Talbot, serving the rations on the 
twenty-fifth day, scraped the bottom of the box 
which had held the dessicated potatoes. There was 
barely the spoonful apiece for each of them. " That 
is all there is left," he said. 

They mixed it with water, and ate it without an- 
other word. 

But at noon, when the lieutenant took the sight 
on the cloud-blurred sun and was working out the 
position of the craft, bending and mumbling over 
the figures, he burst out laughing and crying, and 
kept it up until Halford crawled over to where he 
was and shook him back to his senses. 

The next day was fine. The clouds cleared away 
and the sun came out bright and warm, for the first 
time since they started. The men gazed eagerly 
out across the sea, running in sparkling waves about 



262 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

them, searching for the loom of an island. But there 
was no sight of one. 

Halford was at the tiller. The men were sleeping 
again in the bottom of the boat. The warmth of 
the sun comforted them and brought them more 
strength ; they did not lie staring into the sk}?^ now. 
Occasionally one of them would awaken, struggle 
to his knees, crawl to the edge of the gig, and look 
out across the waters wistfully, hungrily, for sight of 
land, only to fall back again and sleep. 

Halford, dropping into a doze with the tiller in 
his hand, and dreaming of John Policy on the island 
of sand, was startled into wakefulness by a rustling 
sound at his ear. He looked around, and saw a 
bird, a booby, perched on the gunwale of the gig 
gazing stupidly at the men in the bottom of the 
boat. The bird was an arm's length away. Hal- 
ford stared at it for a moment before his brain would 
work. At last an idea struck him. Here was food. 
He gathered all his wits and strength, and, with a 
sudden stretch of his hand, grasped the bird by one 
leg, just as it was starting to fly ofif, alarmed by his 
movement. 

He wrung its neck, stripped the feathers from it, 
and cut it into five pieces. Then he awakened his 
companions, and gave them each a piece. They 
ate it just as it was, warm, raw, bleeding. That, and 
water, was all they had that day. 

The next day a flying fish flew against Halford's 
cheek, and fell to the bottom of the boat. The fish 



I 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 263 

was tiny, not more than three inches long ; it was 
only a mouthful for one man ; the others were sleep- 
ing in the bottom. Halford ate it. 

Presently a school of them came scurrying along 
over the top of the water. Six of them, lifting over 
the boat, struck the sail and fell inside. Halford 
gathered them up, awoke his companions, and dis- 
tributed the food from the sky. 

That was the last they had to eat for two days. 
The men no longer crept to the side of the gig to 
look out over the sea in search of land. They were 
too weak. Only when it was needful to work ship, 
to shift sail or man the rudder, did they stir from 
the gig's bottom. For hour after hour they would 
lie in complete silence, saying nothing, thinking 
nothing. 

Another day came. The man steering awoke 
them at dawn with a cry of gladness and hope. 
They scrambled to their feet. There, far off, dim in 
the haze of the dawn, was the low loom of land. 
They had come upon an island. What island they 
could not know, but it must be one of the Sandwich 
group. Before night they would be there. Hope 
revived life in them ; they fell to talking once more. 
Halford took out his pipe and put it in his mouth. 
He could not smoke it ; his tobacco was wet, and 
there was nothing with which to strike a light, but 
he put it in his mouth and pulled on it with a feel- 
ing of comfort. 

Sitting, with pipe in mouth, gazing toward the 



264 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

distant land, Halford observed clouds gathering 
above it. At first he thought it was only a mass of 
trade-wind clouds, but soon his trained eye perceived 
that it was more. He watched it for a space before 
he spoke. Then he called the attention of Lieuten- 
ant Talbot to the appearance. While they were yet 
discussing it a ripple passed over the waves from 
the direction of the land, and they felt the first pufi 
of a growing breeze in their faces. 

In an hour the breeze had increased to a fresh 
breeze ; in another it was a gale, blowing in their 
teeth. They had shortened sail before it came on so 
strong. Now they hove to, under a close-reefed jib. 

All day the wind blew. Toward night it hauled 
abeam. They got a little more sail on the gig, 
at the risk of being capsized, and managed to work 
in closer to the island. In the morning the loom of 
the land was bigger than it had been the night be- 
fore. All that day they fought their way through 
the choppy seas, carrying what sail they could. It 
was weary, weary work. They had nothing to eat ; 
it became a bitter fight between starvation and 
strength of purpose. If the land had not been in 
sight before them, they must surely have given up, 
and lain down to die in the bottom of the boat. All 
but Halford. He was still stronger than the others, 
although pitiably weak. 

In the afternoon of the second day of the blow 
the wind hauled again, coming more astern, and 
they made toward the island at a fair rate of speed. 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 265 

They could not make out the coast upon which they 
had come. For the most part it was a cHfE over- 
hanging the sea. Here and there they could dis- 
cern a brealc in the cliff, and low ground leading 
down to the sea. And here and there a waterfall 
tumbled over the cliff ; a white ribbon against the 
green plush of the tropical foliage. Those coasts 
are renowned for their beauty, but never were they 
more beautiful to human eyes than on that afternoon 
when the weary, starving mariners looked upon them 
after thirty-one days on the tossing Pacific. 

No town or sign of habitation appeared to the five 
in the boat. It was a lonely coast, but they knew 
that if they once got on shore they could find some 
one living there. A plantation, perhaps, or a native 
settlement. The natives were scattered all along the 
lonely coasts of the Sandwich Islands. 

They headed the gig for one of the breaks in the 
precipice, keeping a sharp lookout for the reef, 
which they expected to find in front of the beach. 
Night came before they could make shore. They 
knew that it would be safer to wait until morning 
before attempting to land, but another night without 
food and there might be none of them left to take 
her in ; none, that is, but Halford. And another 
contrary wind might drive them to sea again. 

They decided to push ahead, and trust to good 
fortune to get over the reef in the dark. Already 
they could hear the breakers. Do not believe that 
the sea tumbles high against an island coast only 



266 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

when there is a storm. Always and forever the 
mighty swells, gathering depth and head for thou- 
sands of miles as they swing through the mid-Pacific, 
rush into the shallows with a wild roar, and dash 
themselves into tumultuous cataracts. 

With their last strength summoned for the final 
eflort, they approached the bellowing reef, watchful, 
alert. Closer and closer they went, straight for the 
low place which they could still see in the dusk 
dipping down from the high sky-line of the clifls. 
The reef shouted in their ears ; they were already 
among the breakers. Lieutenant Talbot, scarcely 
able to stand, took the tiller, with Halford to help 
him. Little good in a tiller then ! They needed 
their oars to help them through the great combers. 
But the oars were adrift somewhere out on the waste 
of waters that tossed and tumbled between them and 
the ninety-one shipwrecked sailors on Ocean Island. 

Farther and farther into the breakers they drove, 
closer and closer to the reef. Beyond the reef was 
a mile of smooth water. Once there, and they could 
paddle themselves ashore. 

A stretch of not more than five fathoms separated 
them from the smooth water. The breakers between 
them and safety were higher, more savage than 
those they had come through, but the distance was 
short. Each following wave, catching them up to 
the sky, drove them farther ; foot by foot they were 
gaining safety. 

They were beginning to breathe more easily, when 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 267 

one wave more fierce than the others caught the 
gig in its comb, and flung it over. Three times it 
turned and twisted in the cataract of tumbhng water. 
The mast was snapped off with the first turn ; sails 
and ropes were scattered in the water. 

WilHam Halford, stronger than the others from 
the beginning, grasped the wreckage and clung to 
it, while wave after wave hurled itself over him. 
Between the waves he could see that no one was 
left in the boat. Whether they had been swept out 
and drowned, or whether they had saved themselves, 
he could not tell. One thought filled his mind. He 
thought of those ninety-one men marooned on the 
little spit of sand they had left a month before, al- 
ready beginning to feel the pinch of hunger. He 
thought of John Policy, the mess boy who had 
chosen him for his hero. He saw them all in his 
mind's eye, sitting on the sand gazing seaward, 
waiting. He saw the look in the eyes of the lad. 
And he knew that if some one of the five who had 
come in the gig did not get ashore, those ninety 
men, and the boy, must surely die. 

The thought gave him new strength ; a strength 
that seemed to come flowing into his body from 
without. He kept his head, and clung to the wreck- 
age, waiting for the gig to be carried over into 
smooth water. It was still afloat and right side up. 
Presently it slid over the last breakers and came to 
rest in the lagoon, half filled with water, battered, 
wrecked, but still afloat. 



268 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

Halford climbed in. There was no sign of the 
four. Slowly, slowly, the gig drifted toward the 
shore. When she had come to within a few fathoms, 
Halford got out the despatch box, containing the re- 
port of the wreck of the Saginaiv, made it fast to his 
shoulders with lashings, slipped overboard, and 
struck out for the shore. He could see it looming 
ahead of him in the faint light of many stars. 

After a time that seemed to him an eternity he 
felt the bottom beneath his knees, crawled a few 
feet, and sank down. He knew no more. 

When he awoke his feet were in the sea and his 
head on the sand of a beach. It was broad day- 
light. He tried to get up, but could not. One 
of his knees was badly hurt ; he was not able to 
bend it. 

He raised his head and looked about for the gig. 
It was nowhere in sight. He looked for some of his 
companions. They were not to be seen. He tried 
once more to get up, but his stiff knee pained him 
too severely. He sank back on the sand. 

Near him he saw a piece of drift-wood ; a broken 
branch with a smaller branch near one end, forming 
a crotch. The branch was four or five feet long ; 
the crotch was at one end. He reached out and 
picked it up. With that as a crutch he got on his 
feet. 

Twenty feet from where he had landed was a sheer 
cliff. If he had gone in there instead of where he 
was he would have been ground to pieces in the 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 269 

surf. In front of him, through a break in the cliff, 
the land came shelving down to the beach. He 
thought he saw dim traces of a trail going up the 
slope. He hobbled to the foot of the path, and 
began to climb, with great pain, and very slowly. 
More than once he would have given up, if his own 
life had been the only one depending upon him. 
But there were the ninety men on Ocean Island — and 
the boy, John Polley. 

He gave out when he was near the top, and had 
to sit down to rest. He was trying to force himself 
to rise, against an almost irresistible desire to lie 
down and sleep, when he heard steps coming toward 
him down the trail. The bushes parted close by, 
and a native man appeared before him. 

Not until he saw the native's expression did Hal- 
ford realize what a spectacle he presented. Haggard, 
almost without clothes, and those that he had cling- 
ing wet to his shrunken limbs, his hair filled with the 
sand of the beach, his staring eyes glistening with a 
wild light, he was a sight to frighten any one stum- 
bling across him sitting by the side of a lonely trail 
near the sea. 

The native was clearly frightened ; too frightened, 
apparently, to move, or cry out. Halford reached 
up his arms toward him in a gesture of appeal. 
"Aloha," he said. It was the one Kanaka word 
he knew. It is their universal salutation and greet- 
ing, meaning more than any one word or phrase we 
have. 



270 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The man was sufficiently relieved of his fear to 
shout. Others came running. They stood about 
Halford, talking excitedly. Gradually reassured by 
their numbers, and Halford's repetition of the word 
" Aloha," and perceiving that the strange man 
needed help, they made bold to lift him to his feet 
and take him to their huts, not far off in a little 
tropical valley. The natives of Hawaii are a gentle, 
kindly race. 

The rest is soon told. One of them went running 
for a half-white living near by who could speak Eng- 
lish, The half-white came, heard the story, and took 
Halford to a plantation where a white man lived. 
The man's name was Bent. Mr. Bent cared for him 
for two days, feeding him a little at a time until he 
could take more food, and then procured for him a 
native schooner which took him to Honolulu. The 
island where he had landed was Kauai, ninety miles 
from Honolulu. 

The people of Honolulu, hearing Halford's story, 
rushed to the assistance of the shipwrecked men on 
Ocean Island. Before night a schooner was des- 
patched, laden with provisions and medical supplies. 
The next day a steamer set out. 

The steamer was the first to reach Ocean Island. 
The entire crew was found alive, and in good health. 
Commander Sicard had kept them busy building a 
schooner from the wreckage of the Saginazv. The 
vessel was nearly completed. Undoubtedly they 
would have set sail in a few days, if the steamer 



THE CRUISE OF THE CAPTAIN'S GIG 271 

had not come, in the beUef that the gig had never 
reached its destination. It is well that they did not 
have to trust themselves to it. 

Halford went from Honolulu to San Francisco on 
the first steamer, and spent some time in the Marine 
Hospital at Mare Island. He was afterward made 
a gunner and given a Medal of Honor by Congress 
for his heroic bravery in bringing news of the wreck 
to Honolulu. He was almost as proud of the honor 
as John Policy was. 

The others who had been in the captain's gig with 
Halford were never found. They had been drowned 
in the surf when the boat overturned. They had 
done their duty, and paid with their lives for the 
safety of their companions of the Saginaw. It was 
a heavy price, but they paid it gladly. Their hero- 
ism is not unrewarded. They will be spoken of with 
tender respect as long as virtue and valor are dear 
to the American heart, which will be forever. 

Remember their names. Lieutenant Talbot, Peter 
Francis, James Muir, and John Andrews. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE MAN BEHIND THE MEN 

"Capture or destroy the Spanish squadron at 
Manila." 

Over lands and under seas, half-way over the 
round earth, the message flashed from Washington 
to Commodore George Dewey, at the British port of 
Hongkong, in China, on the twenty-fifth of April, 
1898. Two months before the battle-ship Maine had 
been blown up in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, and 
now the United ^States, incensed and outraged by 
the destruction of the lives of its sailors in a Spanish 
port, had declared war, and flashed the order for the 
capture or destruction of the Spanish squadron at 
Manila. 

And George Dewey, fighting man, grizzled gradu- 
ate of many a bloody fight, in command of half a 
dozen little war-ships that were the sport and jest of 
the sailors of other nations foregathered in that dis- 
tant quarter of the globe, set his chin, and made 
ready to do his duty. Alone at the ends of the 
earth, six thousand miles from a friendly port, 
laughed at by fellows of his craft, he prepared to 
carry out the order to " capture or destroy " a fleet 
of unknown force in a harbor that was unknown. 
Stories were being told up and down the China coast 



THE MAN BEHIND THE MEN 273 

of the horrid strength of the defenses of Manila Bay ; 
of forts swarming with Krupp guns ; of a mesh of 
mines that underlay the harbor entrances, ready to 
hurl to destruction any hostile craft that ventured 
among them ; of a stout and sturdy fleet lying in 
wait for whatever victim might escape the first dan- 
gers that beset the mouth of the bay. This was the 
fleet he must " capture or destroy." 

Perhaps his thoughts ran back to that time thirty- 
seven years before when he had been second lieu- 
tenant on Farragut's flag-ship, the Mississippi^ that 
day the Union fleet battered the Confederate forts 
at the mouth of the Mississippi River ; perhaps he 
thrilled again in memory of the hour when the same 
ship lay stranded and helpless under the guns of 
Port Hudson, and he lingered on her decks with the 
last, spiking her guns, leaving only with the captain 
a moment before fire reached her magazine and 
flung her in slivers into the air ; perhaps his heart 
beat to the remembered boom of the great guns that 
had roared in the two attacks on Fort Fisher ; per- 
haps the joy of fighting warmed within him. But 
there was no sign in the face and manner of the 
man ; he went about his task like one whose trade 
and craft it is to " capture and destroy " hostile 
fleets, in whatever part of the world they may lurk. 

Five days later the six fighting ships of the 
Asiatic squadron, with their three attendants, were 
steaming along the shores of Luzon, an island in 
the Philippines on which is the city of Manila, for 



274 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

centuries an outpost of Old Spain. Somewhere 
ahead of them the shores broke open into a long, 
wide bay, on whose banks, twenty miles from the 
entrance, stood the ancient city. On both lips of the 
entrance, and on two islands that lay in the channels, 
were the forts which the stories said were bristling 
with heavy guns. Beyond them were the mines, 
and beyond the mines, shores lined and fringed with 
batteries and forts. Amongst them all was the fleet 
to be destroyed. 

Grim and gray in their war paint, the six sailed 
on, creeping and feeling up the coast on the watch 
for the enemy, who might come out to meet them. 
They poked their steel noses into Subig Bay, think- 
ing the Spanish might be there, and then, across the 
soft-heaving, smooth and sunlit tropic sea they 
churned forward toward Manila. Night came; a 
gray night, with the moon behind clouds ; a night 
with a sluggish, leaden sea, across which heaved 
and muttered the war-ships. 

It was midnight when they reached the mouth of 
the bay. Every light on the war vessels was put 
out excepting one hanging at the stern of each so 
that the next could see where to follow. These 
lights were shielded ; they could be seen only from 
astern, and not at all from the shore. 

In through the jaws of the entrance stretched the 
leaden sheet of the sea, pierced by the islands where 
forts were supposed to be ; one fiat island, and the 
other a towering bulk, four hundred feet high ; El 



THE MAN BEHIND THE MEN 275 

Fraile and Corregidor. Beyond was the bay, 
mysterious with the possibility of destruction, un- 
marked by light or buoy, dreadful with mines, 
across which the Americans must track to the 
squadron that was to be destroyed. The Olympia, 
Dewey's flag-ship, turned her nose shoreward and 
pressed for the entrance, followed by the others in 
line. 

The silence of a thousand men was upon the 
ships as they stole into the entrance. They stood 
about, wakeful and alert, not knowing at what mo- 
ment the guns of which they had heard so much 
might open on them, or the bottom of the sea heave 
up with an exploding mine. The strain on nerves 
was tremendous. Orders passed now and then 
along the lines in strained whispers ; hearts beat 
fast ; rasping sighs of suspense broke from breasts 
that knew no fear. It is hard to walk up into the 
face of death and not be able to look it in the eye. 

A light flashed on one of the islands, and was an- 
swered by a rocket. The men drew breath, expect- 
ing the next moment to hear the rushing boom of 
guns and the clanging crash of shot against the iron 
of their ships. But the gray monsters slid onward 
undisturbed. 

They were well inside when a coal-heaver on 
board the McOillough, a small vessel of the revenue 
service, threw on some soft coal. A torrent of fiery 
sparks burst forth from the funnel ; the entire fleet 
looked on at the fiery, spurting smoke. Surely even 



276 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

a Spaniard must see such a sight in the midst of his 
harbor ! 

A Spaniard did. There was a flash on the shore 
of one of the islands, and a shot struck the water in 
front of the McCullough, followed by the sound of 
the gun that had fired ; the shot had sped faster 
than the noise. Another gun, and another, roared 
into the night, answered by guns from the fleet. 

" Remember the J/«/«<? .^ " cried the sailors at their 
posts. " Remember the i]/<3!m^ .^ " The thought of 
their brothers slain in the harbor of Havana mad- 
dened them ; they exulted in the joy of striking back 
in revenge. 

But the time was not yet. One shell from the 
Concoi'd burst directly over the spot whence the 
Spaniards were firing, and there were no more shots 
from shore. The harbor entrance, " bristling with 
terrible guns," was safely passed. But ahead lay 
fields of mines, and the other forts, and the fleet that 
was to be captured or destroyed. 

On the bridge of the Olympia stood Commodore 
Dewey. With him were Lieutenant Rees and 
Lieutenant Calkins, the pilot who was to lead the 
fleet across the unmarked gray harbor to the city, 
its scattered lights faint points far to the north. 
History was in their hands that early morning. 

Slowly the gray warmed to a brighter gray in the 
east, and the day gave warning of its approach. 
Imperceptibly the light crept over the water, as the 
little fleet of American ships churned slowly forward, 



THE MAN BEHIND THE MEN 277 

and at last the anxious eyes on the vessels made out 
the enemy's squadron behind the battery of Cavite, 
six miles short of Manila. 

Five o'clock came, and the signal burst from the 
peak of the Olympia : " Prepare for action." They 
were ready, those men, with the memory of the 
Maine hot in their minds. They were more than 
ready. 

Past Cavite the fleet steamed, prepared for action, 
every man at his post, stokers far below in the 
engine room, not knowing when a shell might pierce 
the boilers overhead and let down upon them death 
in scalding steam ; engineers prowling in the clank- 
ing engine ; ammunition men at the bottoms of the 
hoists ; gunners standing by their guns ; officers on 
the bridge, all nerves taut and strung for the fight 
that meant glory or destruction. 

Cavite leaped into resounding flame, and metal 
hurtled across the waters in a sheet, churning the 
surface, sending spouts and jets to fall back again 
in tinkling splashes. No answer came from the 
American fleet. Malate, south of the city, opened 
up ; the batteries on the sea wall ; the forts beyond. 
The gray monsters wound through the torrent of 
fire untouched and silent. 

Suddenly the water in front of the Baltimore bulged 
and broke into a lifting mass that rose high in air 
and fell back with a roaring gush. One of the sub- 
marine torpedoes had been fired. Each man gripped 
himself and braced his nerves against the next that 



278 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

should explode, not knowing whether it might not be 
beneath the keel of his own vessel ; not knowing 
whether he might not in an instant be tossed aloft 
in the midst of a tangle of twisted iron that would 
descend and sink beneath the water, dragging his 
mangled body with it. Their arms ached to be at 
the enemy ; but up on the bridge of the Olympia, 
grizzled and grim, stood the man who had history 
in his hand, not making a motion in reply. 

They bent in a wide sweep in front of Manila and 
turned back toward Cavite, closer inshore, passing 
obliquely toward the Spanish squadron in line across 
the bay behind Cavite point ; nine vessels of war in 
all, commanded by the brave Admiral Montojo, 
manned by the courage of Castile. " Capture or 
destroy the Spanish squadron at Manila," the order 
from Washington had read. Here, then, was the 
squadron that was to be captured or destroyed. 

The Spanish fleet was barking at the Americans. 
Their shots, at first falling short in the water, began 
to climb farther and farther toward the American 
vessels. Presently they thumped close at hand, or 
passed across, sputtering in the air. Dewey, calm, 
cool, quiet, glanced at the shore. " About five thou- 
sand yards I should say, eh, Rees ? " He turned the 
question to Lieutenant Rees, standing beside him. 

** Between five and six, I should say, sir," re- 
turned the lieutenant. They might have been dis- 
cussing the probability of rain, so unconcerned were 
their tones. 



THE MAN BEHIND THE MEN 279 

Dewey leaned over the bridge ; Captain Gridley 
stood below on the main deck. " When you are 
ready you may fire, Gridley," he said, quietly. 

The pent-up roar that burst from the guns of the 
Olympia on the instant told how ready they were. 
The bridge quivered and heaved from the shock of 
the guns ; the vessel trembled and quavered. It was 
like a blow. 

All along the line of vessels reaching behind the 
terrible din shook into the air. " Remember the 
Maine ! Remember the Maine I " rang the cry. 
It reached the ears of the Spaniards on their ships ; 
swarthy faces turned pale to hear it. The time of 
vengeance was at hand. 

Once, twice, six times the American vessels twisted 
back and forth in front of the doomed enemy, each 
time drawing closer. Their mighty broadsides beat 
and pulsed like a great clock of doom, punctuating 
the incessant roar of the Spanish guns of fleet and 
forts. Now here, now there, the Americans — the 
"Yankee pigs" — turned their fire, hurling all their 
force on this vessel and on that of the enemy. Sub- 
lime and terrible struggle ! 

Great holes, beaten through the iron sides of the 
Spanish ships, yawned wider with each pulsing 
broadside. They tottered under the blows, their 
sides sagging and crumpling up. Fires broke out 
and burned behind the Spaniards, fighting frantically 
at their guns. Incessantly, relentlessly, the Ameri- 
can solid shot and shell clanked against the iron 



28o BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

ships, beating them into masses of junk ; the aim of 
the men behind the guns was deadly in its accuracy. 

Do not believe that the Spaniards were not brave. 
But it takes more than bravery to win a fight. The 
Spanish fire was wild. Scarcely a shot of the 
myriad that swept across the waters of the bay found 
a target. Now and then one thunked with a sharp 
twang against a ship's side, passing harmlessly 
through, or exploding where it did no hurt. One, 
entering the Baltimore, glanced this way and that, 
leaving holes where it passed, until finally it hit a 
ventilator and spent itself spinning on the deck. In 
its course it passed through a box of ammunition for 
a three-pounder, exploding the powder and hurting 
six men. But they would not go below into the sick 
bay ; the surgeon's instruments lay spread unused on 
the operating tables. 

At the third tightening turn of the American ves- 
sels, Admiral Montojo, frantic under the punishment 
his vessel, the Reina Christina, was receiving, 
slipped cable and steamed out toward the Raleigh. 
Instantly she drew the fire of the entire American 
fleet. Reeling under the blows, she turned and 
started back. As she turned a gunner in the for- 
ward turret of the Olympia aimed an eight-inch gun 
at her stern, directed toward him at the time. 
Delicately as though it had been a squirrel rifle, he 
pointed the weighty mass of metal, twenty-eight feet 
long, at the exposed end of the enemy's flag-ship. 
The shell ripped its way through, from end to end, 




On Board the Olympia, Battle of Manila Bay 



Reproduced from "Harper's Pictorial 
History of the War with Spain." Copy- 
right 1898, 1899, by Harper & Brothers. 



THE MAN BEHIND THE MEN 281 

tearing down bulwarks and slaying men in its 
course. The Reina Christina limped into line a 
wreck, and the admiral transferred his flag to the 
Isla de Cuba, just as Captain Perry had once trans- 
ferred his from the Lazorence to the Niagara. But 
Montojo was not a Perry. 

What was that creeping out from the shelter of 
Cavite ? That low-lying tiny craft ? The alarm ran 
through the fleet that it was a torpedo boat. Every 
gun was turned upon it. It stopped, hesitated, 
turned, and drifted slowly back, bringing up on 
shore. The men were relieved. They did not know 
until the fight was ended that the " torpedo boat " 
was nothing but a private launch belonging to an 
Englishman that had put out to meet an expected 
ship and bring off a trunk that was thought to be 
aboard. By great good luck no shot from the fleet 
reached the little craft ; its Philippino crew cowered 
in safety in the bottom of it. 

Two hours had passed, when a more alarming 
rumor ran through the fleet. Somebody had said 
that only fifteen rounds of ammunition remained to 
each gun. Dewey, standing on the bridge of the 
Olympia, heard the tale. He turned to Lieuten- 
ant Rees. " What time is it, Rees ? " he asked. 

" Seven forty-five, sir." 

Dewey smiled grimly. " Breakfast time," he said. 
" Run up the signals to * cease firing ' and to ' follow 
me.' " There would be time to finish the work after 
breakfast. The men had been awake and alert all 



282 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

night, with nothing but a cup of coffee, and the joy 
of fighting, to sustain them. 

A mutter of disappointment ran through the crews 
as the vessels drew away into the bay. They could 
not understand why the work was left undone ; why 
they must quit as long as there were fifteen rounds of 
shot left in their magazines. 

It was a strange breakfast those smoke-grimed 
sailors ate under the tropical sky in the distant port 
that May morning. Two hours before they had 
grappled with an unknown fate ; now they were con- 
querors, only waiting to complete their work. 
Alone, six thousand miles from possible support, 
they sat down to their coffee and bread with gay 
hearts, discussing, as they ate, the shots they had 
fired. 

The commanders of the various ships gathered on 
the decks of the Olynipia to report the conditions of 
their vessels. Not a man had been killed or seriously 
hurt, not a gun was out of working order, not a ship 
disabled I "All in good order, sir, except that it was 
very hot," reported Captain Wildes of the Boston ; 
— Captain Wildes, who had drunk his coffee on the 
bridge in the heat of action in as quiet comfort as 
though he had been on his summer porch at home. 
" Men tired, and ship a little scratched," said Cap- 
tain Dyer of the Baltimore. " Everything all right, 
and ready to resume business at a moment's notice," 
declared Commander Walker of the Concord. " Poor 
Randall died from heart failure as we were passing 



THE MAN BEHIND THE MEN 283 

Corregidor, but that is the extent of our casualties," 
remarked Captain Hodgson, of the McCullough ; 
Randall was chief engineer of the revenue cutter. 

For three hours the fleet drifted about the waters 
of the bay, resting; the sailors cleaning up the marks 
of battle and making ready to renew it. The story 
about the ammunition was proven false ; there was 
plenty left. Meanwhile, on the Spanish ships, there 
was a tremendous hubbub. Three of them were in 
flames ; the others little better than wrecks. The 
Spaniards rushed up and down their decks, trying to 
patch up the damages they had received. Guns 
were dismounted and cluttered with wreckage torn 
loose by the American shots. Dead bodies lay 
about ; blood oozed through the scuppers. The cries 
and screams of the wounded came to the ears of the 
Americans, quietly at breakfast in the bay. 

In three hours they returned to complete the order 
that had come over land and under seas from Wash- 
ington. The Baltimore, in the lead this time, picked 
up Sangley Point battery, silenced it in a few rounds, 
and bore in upon the Reina Christina^ now little bet- 
ter than a wreck, and afire. A few shots and she 
blew up, the fire having crept to her magazine. 

The Concord ran in to destroy a transport, which 
took fire in a few minutes and was abandoned by the 
soldiers on her. A shell from the Raleigh in the 
magazine of the Austria, which was receiving the 
fire of two or three of the Americans, disposed of 
that vessel. The Concord made an end of the Gen- 



284 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

eral Lezo. The Baltimore and Concord^ turning 
their attention to the Castilla, soon had her afire. 
Her men opened the sea cocks to let in the water, 
hoping the flames would not reach the ammunition 
rooms. Only the Don Antonio de Ulloa was left. 
She fought madly, with all her companions lying 
about, flaming wrecks, or sunk in the shoal water ; 
their upper works above the waves marking where 
they had gone down. The fight was hopeless ; it 
was worse than hopeless. The Ulloa was a com- 
plete wreck, battered and torn by the merciless hail 
of steel that bore upon her from the American guns. 
The Petrel, running into the bay behind Cavite in 
chase of three small gunboats that were endeavoring 
to escape, destroyed them, and five other smaller 
craft she found. At half-past twelve, an hour after 
the second round had begun, not a Spanish flag was 
flying in the bay except one on the staff of the Don 
Antonio de Ulloa. The Isla de Cuba, on which 
Montojo had taken refuge, was a wreck. Not a gun 
was in commission ; not a man was on her decks. 
Sadly the brave Montojo hauled down his flag and 
went ashore, making his way to Manila through the 
crowd of sightseers that had come to witness the 
destruction of the "Yankee pigs." 

The fight was won. The order flashed around 
the world had been carried out. The Maine had 
been avenged. 



CHAPTER XII 

" VALIENTE " 

On the afternoon of May 29, 1898, the armored 
cruiser Neiu York, Admiral Sampson's flag-ship, lay 
at Key West, coaling. Clinging all along her war- 
painted sides were dirty, grimy little lighters. The 
air was full of coal dust ; the ship was a mess from 
stem to stern. There was a great racket of buckets 
and hoists and donkey engines and shouting of men. 
The Nezv York was coaling in a hurry. So was the 
Oregon, that had just arrived from its race around 
the Horn. 

Something had happened in Cuban waters. For 
a long time the entire American squadron had been 
on the jump, looking for the Spanish fleet under 
Admiral Cervera, which had left Spain and was ex- 
pected anywhere and everywhere. Wild rumors 
had been running up and down the sea and land ; 
no one knew where the Spaniards were, or where 
they were going. 

Then news had reached Admiral Sampson, who 
was in and out of the passages through the Bahama 
Islands, that Cervera had slipped around to the east 
of Cuba and had run into the harbor of Santiago, on 
the south coast. Commodore Schley was in com- 
mand in those waters. Admiral Sampson sent the 



286 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 



New Orleans down to Santiago to help Schley hold 
the Spanish fleet, and went piling through the sea 
to Key West to coal. 

In the midst of the fuss and dust and racket of the 
coaling, some one was having a quiet talk with Ad- 
miral Sampson. He was a quiet young man in the 
uniform of a lieutenant of the United States Navy. 
He was tall and slender. His neck was long. His 
eyes, rather deep in his head, gazed on the face of 
Admiral Sampson without a quaver. They were 
sober, serious eyes ; it was hard to think of them as 
smiling. 

The name of the young man was Richmond Pear- 
son Hobson. He was an instructor of construction 
in the naval academy at Annapolis. He knew much 
about building ships. He was trying to interest Ad- 
miral Sampson in a scheme for the building of some 
unsinkable ships to be used in the reduction of the 
defenses of Havana harbor. 

" It is not a question of an unsinkable boat, but of 
a sinkable," said the admiral. 

The quiet young man waited for the admiral to 
make his meaning clear. The harbor of Santiago 
is a flask with a crooked neck. The city is at the 
large part of the flask, and the neck of it gives into 
the sea. The neck is slim and crooked and lined 
with high, jungle-covered banks. One wall of the 
harbor entrance is a cliff, capped by Morro Castle. 
Twisting through the crooked neck is a thin ship- 
channel. Admiral Sampson wanted to put a stop- 



VALIENTE" 287 



per in the bottle and leave the Spanish flies to buzz 
while he went about his own affairs with the fleet. 
He wanted to make it impossible for Cervera to get 
out, so that the entire American naval force would 
not be needed to watch him. It was out of the 
question to enter the harbor and annihilate the 
Spaniards, as Dewey had done at Manila. The 
batteries that lined the neck of the bottle would blow 
out of the water any vessel that tried that ; or, if the 
guns failed to destroy it, the mines would complete 
the work. 

" What we want is a vessel that will sink in the 
channel rapidly, and block it up," repeated Admiral 
Sampson, when he had outlined the situation. 

That was the beginning of it all. 

Two days later the iron collier Merrimac, off the 
harbor of Santiago, was aswarm with crowds of busy 
men. Hobson was going to sink her in the channel 
and shut up the Spanish fleet. The thing had been 
arranged to the least detail by the tall young lieu- 
tenant with the deep-set eyes that had no lurk of a 
smile in them. He would take the collier in under 
the guns of the batteries, ride her to where the chan- 
nel was narrowest, twist her across it with helm and 
anchor, blow her sides in with torpedoes, and hold 
her there until she sank to the bottom. He would 
do it all with only six men to help him. 

Think what it meant to do that. No one knew 
how many batteries lined the neck of the bottle, or 
how many mines lay along its bottom. Somewhere 



288 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

inside was the Spanish fleet, with ready guns, lying 
in wait. The Merrhnac would be laced back and 
forth by crossing ribbons of steel. There could be 
no doubt about it. Of course, they would try to 
steal in early on Thursday morning, before the 
moon went down and the sun came up, but they 
would be discovered and fired upon long before 
they could reach the place where Lieutenant Hobson 
had decided he would sink the Merrimac. 

With all this fire sheeting across the channel, how 
could those in the collier expect to get as far up the 
channel as they would have to get if their stopper 
was to do any good? How could they expect to 
live from one minute to another before the blast of 
screaming steel? And if they should get to the 
spot they wished to reach, and sink the boat, what 
chance would they have to get away alive? Hobson 
had arranged for a return, but no one thought much 
about that part of the plan. The men who were go- 
ing in the Merrimac were not figuring on how they 
were going to get back. 

Here is something splendid ; here is something 
that makes one glad he is an American ! Almost 
without exception, all the men in the fleet wanted to 
go in the Merrimac when it was known what was to 
be done. Ships' crews volunteered bodily. They 
clamored to be taken, they argued, they pleaded, 
they offered months' pay for an exchange with those 
who had been chosen. Strange, isn't it, when they 
had small reason to hope that they would come back 



VALIENTE" 289 



alive ? Strange ; but you yourself would have done 
the same thing. 

These six men were picked out : Phillips, a ma- 
chinist on the Merrimac ; Kelly, a water-tender on 
the Merrimac; Deignan, quartermaster on the 
Merrimac ; Charette, from the Neiv York, who had 
been with Hobson when the latter was a midship- 
man on the Chicago ; Montague, chief master-at- 
arms on the Nezv York, and Mullen, boatswain of 
the Nezv York. Mullen did not go — but that be- 
longs to another part of the story. 

All day Wednesday men swarmed in and about 
the Merrimac. There was a great deal to be done, 
and it must be done before midnight, for they were 
going to run her in in the early morning of Thurs- 
day. They had to arrange ten torpedoes along her 
outside, ten or twelve feet below the water. The 
torpedoes were already made ; charges of brown 
powder for the eight-inch guns, enclosed in metal 
cylinders and made water-proof. These torpedoes 
had to be connected by wires with firing batteries, 
each torpedo to have its own battery and wires. 
The wires were arranged so that the torpedoes could 
be fired from the deck, one at a time. The torpedoes 
were fastened to the side of the vessel by two ropes, 
one of them running about the vessel from prow to 
stern, and the other crossing around her, under her 
keel and over her deck. Belt lines and hogging 
lines, they were called. 

That was only part of what must be done before 



290 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

they could run her in. They had to arrange anchors 
at bow and stern to stop her when they had brought 
her to the right place. That was a hard thing to do. 
Hobson figured that she would be running four or 
five knots by the time they wanted to let go their 
anchors. That would put too much of a pull on the 
anchor chains ; a vessel of seven thousand tons go- 
ing five knots has a bit of a yank in its nose. So 
they had to arrange to take care of that yank. 

To begin with, they roused all the chain out of 
the chain locker and laid it on deck. Then they 
got a long, new, heavy manilla hawser and made 
one end fast. At intervals along this hawser they 
fastened smaller manilla ropes, and bent the ends of 
these smaller ropes to the anchor chain at distances 
of five fathoms. When the anchor should be let go 
and begin to draw up on the chain, the pull would 
come on the smaller hawsers, which would stretch, 
resist, and then break. Each one stretching and 
breaking in succession would stop the headway of 
the boat a little ; by the time the last one had been 
broken she would be so much slowed down that the 
anchor chain would probably not snap. 

It was very important that the anchor chains 
should hold. Everything depended on them. They 
figured in the plan to hold the boat in the proper 
position while the torpedoes sank her. At a certain 
point in the channel Hobson was going to throw the 
Merrimad s helm to port, which would make her 
turn to the right. Then he was going to let the bow 



"VALIENTE" 291 



anchor go from the starboard side. That would jerk 
her around still more to the right. At the same 
time, the torpedoes were to be fired. When she 
should be half turned across the channel, another 
anchor was to be let go from the stern on the right 
or starboard side, with just enough chain to bring 
the stern to a standstill at the same time that the 
bow anchor had held her forward. She would then 
be lying across the channel at the narrowest place, 
and there she would sink. You can see how im- 
portant the anchors were. 

They had much trouble arranging the chains and 
anchors ; especially the anchor for the stern. They 
could not get aft the large one that they expected to 
use, and had to splice two smaller ones together. 
It took all the men aboard ship to drag the huge 
chain out of the chain locker and get it to the star- 
board quarter. 

All through the hot day Wednesday and far into 
the night the work went on. Lieutenant Crank, 
assistant engineer of the Merrimac, was down in the 
engine room getting the engine and boilers ready so 
that it would not be necessary to do any stoking as 
the ship ran in. The sea connections were fixed so 
that they could be thrown open to admit the sea at 
the proper time. At last, long after midnight, every- 
thing was ready. Admiral Sampson came on board 
to inspect, returned to the flag-ship, and the Merri- 
mac, getting under way, swung into the course for 
the harbor. The moon was still an hour in the sky. 



292 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

The men who were going had been working 
without eating or sleeping since early on Wednes- 
day, under the strain of a race against time. They 
had passed through the last stages of physical 
fatigue, and were going now on sheer excitement 
and nerve force. They had got their second wind. 

Slowly the doomed vessel picked up her way 
toward the entrance to the harbor. The dull mass 
of the mountains that came down to the water 
about it could be faintly made out in the half light 
of the failing moon. The men were at their posi- 
tions, keyed up for the final moment. They were 
stripped to their underclothes. Each had on a belt 
carrying a revolver and cartridges. That was the 
uniform for the occasion. 

As they were getting nearer and nearer the head- 
land that marked the entrance the torpedo-boat 
Porter came fuming and burring up with an order 
from the admiral that the Merrimac should return. 
It was too late ; sunrise would be upon them and the 
light would be fatal. Hobson pleaded but the 
order was not changed. Slowly, sadly, they swung 
the head of the collier back and crept off to the 
blockading fleet. 

The spell was broken. The men, strung to the 
highest tension, gave way and crumpled up. Some 
of them had worked for twenty-four hours without 
rest or food. Deignan, quartermaster at the wheel, 
sat down and went to sleep, Mullen was so ex- 
hausted that he could not rest. He had to be 



VALIENTE" 293 



ordered back to the Neiv York to save him from 
going to pieces under the physical strain. That was 
why he did not go. He had worked harder than 
any one else, and with more responsibility. 

Thursday was a weary day for them all. When 
you have made plans to go out and meet death half- 
way, you like to be about it and have it over with. 
They kept thinking throughout the day. If they 
had been permitted to go, they would by this time 
have known what was going to happen. They 
wanted very much to know what was going to hap- 
pen ; not so much whether they were going to die 
or not, but whether they were going to succeed in 
getting the cork properly into the neck of the bottle 
before they died. 

But the longest day must come to an end, and 
midnight whirled around again. The moon came 
out clear ; the heat of the day was gone, and the sea 
stretched sleepily under the tropic sky. Here and 
there the black hulking shadow of the blockading 
ships rested on the surface of the sea. Everything 
was quiet and serene ; there was no light but the 
light of the moon. 

Half-past one in the morning, and the Merrimac 
was standing in close to the entrance of Santiago 
harbor. A group of men in their underclothes, with 
life-buoys and revolvers belted to them, crouched on 
the bridge over a bucket of hot cofTee that Charette 
had brought up from the engine room. Mullen was 
not there ; his place had been taken by Murphy, a 



294 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

coxswain from the Iowa. Another man, Clausen, 
coxswain of the New York! s barge, was also added 
to the crew at the last minute. 

The meal finished, the men went to their stations. 
Deignan steered. Murphy stood by the bow anchor. 
After letting that go, he was to fire torpedo number 
one. Charette, who was on the bridge with Hobson, 
was to fire torpedoes two and three, after one had 
gone. Deignan, putting the helm hard aport to 
bring the Merrimac across the channel, was to run 
down and fire number four. Clausen was the man 
to handle number five. Phillips and Kelly, down in 
the engine room, were to stop the engine on signal, 
open the sea valves, and then go on deck to fire six 
and eight. The raw ends of the firing wires lay 
ready on the deck. Montague was to stand by to 
let go the stern anchor. 

They had taken some care for their own safety ; 
they would win back to the squadron if they could. 
A life-boat had been filled with arms and hung over- 
side from a cargo boom. The men were to gather 
in the gangway, behind the bulwarks, opposite the 
life-boat, after they had tended to their duties, and 
await the order to get in. Hobson planned to have 
them get in as the Merrimac was sinking. They 
would cut the rope that held them to the cargo boom, 
and fioat off. 

A catamaran life raft also was on deck. If the 
life-boat should be destroyed, they would make use 
of that. There was a cave under the cliff that the 



"VALIENTE" 295 



Morro was on. They arranged to meet in the cave 
after the sinking of the ship. Lieutenant Powell, in 
the New York' s launch, said that he would run in 
there and pick them up. If he was not able to do 
that, they would wait there until some chance came 
of getting to the squadron. 

The moon was still an hour and a half high in the 
sky when the Merrimac steered in for the Morro. 
Ahead could be seen the dark masses of the moun- 
tains of Cuba, their outlines all run together in the 
faint light and distance. Everything was quiet and 
peaceful afloat and ashore. The blockading squad- 
ron was miles behind. The Merrimac, except for 
the tiny little launch that busied about in its wake, 
was alone on the sea. 

As they headed in for the Morro they found that 
the Merrimac was sailing directly down the moon 
track. She was put to the southward to avoid that 
exposed position. The Morro began to show white 
on the top of the clifl where it was perched ; its out- 
lines came out in the night glass. 

They were two thousand yards from the entrance. 
No further use in trying to sneak in and surprise the 
Spaniards. They must have seen the vessel by this 
time, and wondered what it was up to. Now for a 
dash ! 

" Full speed ahead I " the signal went to the engine 
room. Kelly and Phillips gave her all she could 
take, and the doomed vessel drove through the 
water. 



296 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

" Steady astarboard ! " 

*• Steady astarboard, sir," and the vessel turned on 
her rudder Hke a thing that knew. 

The foam began to fly from the anchors, hung 
over the side and trailing in the water. The sound 
of the plashing bow-waves quickened and rose, as 
the bow swung around to the northward and west- 
ward to head for the course in. 

" Meet her I" was the order, 

'• Meet her, sir," came Deignan's response. 

"Steady!" 

"Steady, sir." 

They were on the course for entering. 

Charette was sent below to tell Phillips and Kelly 
that they were on the final run, and that the next 
signal would be for them to stop the engines, open 
the sea valves, and lay down to their torpedoes on 
deck. Both were directed to put on their life-pre- 
servers and revolvers, with cartridge belts, before 
leaving the engine room. 

Now they were putting Morro ofi their bows to 
starboard, and dragging her farther and farther 
abeam as they pounded through the gray swells 
toward the entrance. The neck of the bottle was be- 
ginning to open up. The tall young man on the 
bridge, with the eyes that did not smile, could see 
through the night glass the walls and windows of 
Morro. 

" Nothing to the westward," said the tall young 
man. 



"VALIENTE" 297 



" Nothing to the westward, sir," from Deignan. 

Morro bore northeast by north ; her high walls 
were distinct in the gray and yellow light of the fail- 
ing moon. How much longer would it be before the 
Spaniards would begin to fire ? 

" Port, sir." 

•• Steady I " 

" Steady, sir." 

" Port a little ! " 

" Port a little, sir." 

Morro bore northeast. " Steady ! " 

" Steady, sir." 

"Head for the Morro!" 

" Head for the Morro, sir." 

The night glasses picked up Estrella. The tall 
young man wanted to find Estrella ; it was a land- 
mark. " Can you make out the white spot to the 
left of Morro ?" asked Hobson. 

"Yes, sir," from Deignan. 

" That is Estrella. Steer for Estrella." 

" Steer for Estrella, sir." 

There was a battery there ; perhaps two. 

A swell was running into the neck of the bottle. 
It might yaw the Merrimac to port. " Watch the 
helm ! " warned Lieutenant Hobson. 

" Watch the helm, sir," echoed Deignan, 

" Do not let her yaw, but use only a gentle helm." 

" Aye, aye, sir." 

Deignan was thinking of nothing but of his helm ; 



298 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

the Merrimac was sliding into the narrow channel as 
truly as though she was a crack yacht. Morro 
lifted high in the sky, and the west side of the en- 
trance began to break into view through the dim 
light. On the top of the west side was a bald spot. 
It was another battery. There were enough batter- 
ies to keep out a fleet. 

Five hundred yards from the entrance I Why 
didn't the Spaniards let fly at them? They must 
have seen the Merrimac for a long time now. 

Lieutenant Hobson, casting a quick eye about, 
saw that all was well. Let them fire if they would ; 
the Merrimac had enough headway on her now to 
bring her in. And as soon as she got a little 
farther, the flowing tide would help. Nothing could 
keep the stopper out of the neck of the bottle. It 
only remained for him to sink the vessel in the right 
place. 

A flash close to the water at the western side of 
the opening, opposite the Morro ! Every one braced 
himself for the crash of steel against the ship ; but 
there was no crash. Another flash ; another miss. 
It was hard to believe that even a Spaniard could 
not hit such a target at such a range. 

Lieutenant Hobson turned his night glass to the 
spot whence the flashes came. It was a picket boat, 
mounting rapid fire guns. He watched another 
flash, and in the instant understood what they were 
trying to do. The shot passed astern ; they were 
aiming at the Merrimad s rudder ! 



"VALIENTE" 299 



A storm of helpless rage arose in the bosom of 
the quiet young man whose eyes did not often smile. 
They would have to go within a boat's length of the 
pilot-boat, with its rapid fire guns feeling around for 
the Merrwiad s rudder. Nothing could be done. If 
there had been even one rapid fire gun aboard the 
collier there would have been a chance to silence the 
pilot fellow. They could do nothing but submit to 
the rough handling. If the enemy should succeed 
in disabling the rudder, the expedition would fail. 
All their heart-breaking work of the past two days, 
the destruction of the steamer, the possible loss of 
their own lives, would be for naught. The thought 
was maddening. Meanwhile, the rapid fire guns on 
the pilot-boat were barking and spitting as rapidly 
as they were able. Lieutenant Hobson winced with 
every shot, listening for the crash of the projectile 
against the priceless structure of the rudder's parts. 

But the pilot-boat punching out in the dark at his 
rudder did not prevent him from keeping those deep- 
set eyes on the Morro rock. Presently he was satis- 
fied ; he could see where the cliff broke off sheer into 
the water. The channel washed the rock at that 
point. 

" A touch of port helm," he said, and waited to 
see whether the vessel responded after the attention his 
rudder had had at the hands of the rapid fire guns. 

"A touch of port helm, sir," repeated Deignan, 
and the Merrmiac slowly, softly turned toward the 
rock of the Morro. The gear still worked. 



300 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

" Steady 1" 

" Steady, sir." 

Now, even without helm, she would pass down 
the channel. The young man on the bridge was 
not now so furious against the pilot-boat, and began 
to realize what a brave show the tiny craft had made. 
At the moment when she had opened fire on the 
Merrimac, she did not know that it was not a battle- 
ship she was assailing ; she could not be sure that 
one answering fire from the thing she was striking 
out at would not annihilate her. 

A crash from the port side ; a blast of sharp noise. 
" The western battery has opened on us, sir," called 
Charette, who was standing on the bridge ready to 
run with orders if the signal ropes should be des- 
troyed. 

" Very well ; pay no attention to it," replied Lieu- 
tenant Hobson. Morro point required all of his 
present attention. 

You have walked down the street in melting 
winter weather and seen the Eighth Grade crowd 
packing snowballs on the corner opposite where you 
had to pass. You have walked along as though you 
did not see them ; as though the snowballs they 
might throw at you would be nothing. And when 
you got to a point where you could no longer watch 
for them out of the tail of your eye, you have braced 
yourself against the feel of the first blow from the 
missiles. You probably hoped it would not take 
you behind the ear. Now, imagine those snowballs 



"VALIENTE" 301 



to have been two-, three-, four-, six-inch shells, any 
one of which, taking you behind the ear, would put 
an abrupt stop to all your private plans, and you can 
see how hard it was for the men on the Merrimac to 
" pay no attention to it." 

But they did " pay no attention to it." Murphy, 
lying flat on the forecastle head, with one hand on 
the ax-helve, was ready to cut the lashings of the 
anchor and fire the first torpedo. He had nothing 
else on his mind than those two duties. The crew 
of the Iowa had selected him from among them all 
to represent the honor and courage of the lozva, and 
he was going to do it. Charette stood at the end 
of the bridge, watching everything, ready to be 
handy man for the tall young lieutenant. Deignan 
was minding his wheel as though he were entering a 
peaceful harbor in broad day. Down in the engine 
room Phillips and Kelly were tending to the engine, 
and nothing else. The others, lying prone at their 
posts, were waiting for their cues to set about their 
work. 

" Whir-r-r-r ! Cling ! ! " A shell sang its song 
across the bridge, and brought up with a sharp 
metallic ring against something. Lieutenant Hob- 
son looked about to see what had happened. Deig- 
nan and the binnacle were still there ; the engine- 
room telegraph was still standing ; Charette was 
over by the bridge rail, calm as a fisherman. Brave 
chap, that Charette ! 

The quiet young man stepped to the engine 



302 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

telegraph, and signaled " Stop 1 " The answer- 
pointer turned to " Stop " and stayed there. The 
wheel ceased its hissing in the water ; the pulse of 
the engine died out of the huge frame of the 
vessel. 

" You may lay down to your torpedoes now, 
Charette," said Lieutenant Hobson. 

" Aye, aye, sir ; " and Charette went. 

The Merrimac slipped under the sheer cliff that 
was topped by the Morro. The rock shut off the 
sky. They were close in. Suddenly a swell caught 
the ship by the stern and swung her bow toward the 
rock. 

" Starboard ! " commanded Hobson, quickly. 

" Starboard, sir." 

Still she swung in, her nose creeping up toward 
the rock. 

" Starboard, I say ! " repeated Hobson. 

" The helm's astarboard, sir." 

Fifty, forty, thirty feet from the rock before the 
helm took hold and swung the bow of the boat into 
the course again. They were anxious moments. If 
the steering gear was gone there was no chance for 
them to carry out the plan. The vessel would sink, 
but it would sink anywhere but in the right place. 

" Meet her ! " as the Merrimac straightened out. 
A thrill of joy shivered up his spine when he saw 
her turn ; he knew the gear still stood. 

" Meet her, sir." 

All this time the fire from the Spanish batteries 



"VALIENTE" 303 



was increasing. Spot after spot on the hillsides 
burst into snarling fire ; the air was a-whistle with 
projectiles ; there was a constant clank, clank, of 
steel on steel as they found their target, and a crack- 
ling racket of the wreck in the wake of the shells. 
Projectiles were cutting through and across the 
collier from three or four directions ; soon the Span- 
ish war-ships would be in range. 

Half a ship's length now would bring them to the 
position where Hobson had determined to begin to 
sink the craft. Half a ship's length more before the 
helm would be put hard aport and the torpedoes 
started in their work of destruction. Good thing 
the Spaniards had not found the rudder with their 
steel fingers ! 

The sky opened behind the Morro. That was the 
place. 

" Hard aport i " said the quiet young man on the 
bridge. It was the first order of the final manoeuver. 

" Hard aport, sir," echoed Deignan. 

The ship slid straight ahead, without response to 
her helm. 

" Hard aport, I say ! " repeated Hobson, sharply. 
Perhaps Deignan, for the first time, had failed him. 

" The helm is hard aport, sir, and lashed," Deignan 
reported. 

If that was true, the steering gear was surely gone. 
For the Merrimac still bore straight down the chan- 
nel, past the point where she must begin to turn 
athwart it, if she was to do any good. 



304 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

" Very well, Deignan," said Lieutenant Hobson, 
quietly ; " lay down to your torpedo." 

Half a ship's length back the steering gear had 
controlled the vessel I Now, in the supreme mo- 
ment, when everything depended on it, it was gone. 
And the huge vessel, with its 7,000 tons of dead 
weight, was charging through the water at a rate of 
four and three-quarter knots, with the tide sweeping 
them another knot and a half. 

There was just one slim chance that the manoeuver 
could still be accomplished by the use of the anchors. 
It was a very slim chance ; the anchors would be 
doing more than could be expected of them if they 
brought the ship to a standstill with all her headway 
on her. But it was the only chance. 

A pull on the cord that ran to Murphy's wrist. 
Then three strong pulls. A splashing in the water 
at the bow ; a rumbling run of chain, shivering the 
ship as it payed out over the side. In another in- 
stant, a shock, sharp and snappy, and a muffled 
ring sounding above the blast of Spanish guns. 
Torpedo number one had gone off ; there was a 
great hole in the bow of the Merrimdc. 

If the bow anchor chain, in breaking, as it must 
break under the strain of the huge plunging ship, 
should twist it a little in the channel, and the tor- 
pedoes should blow holes large enough in the bot- 
tom of her, there was still a chance that she would 
sink in a place where she would do some good as a 
stopper to the bottle. 



"VALIENTE" 305 



But where were the other torpedoes ? It was time 
for Charette to be firing two and three. It was past 
time. " Fire all torpedoes ! " called Lieutenant Hob- 
son. In the tumult of noise his voice was not heard. 

Charette appeared on the bridge. " Number two 
and three will not fire, sir," he said. " The battery 
cells are shattered all over the deck." 

The Socappa batteries had opened ; the din of 
striking missiles was terrific. There was a constant 
clanging clatter, like firecrackers set off by bunches 
in a tin bucket, as the shells struck the ship. 

"Very well," replied Lieutenant Hobson ; "lay 
down and underrun all the others, beginning with 
number four, and spring them as soon as possible." 

Just then number five went off. Deignan had 
waited for two and three, and when they had not 
followed number one, he had tried four. But the 
batteries for four were scattered about the deck. 
Then he went down to Clausen at number five. Be- 
tween them they got it off. 

Everything was going wrong. The ship would 
be a long time sinking, with only two torpedoes 
fired. Still, if the anchors held there was a chance. 
Lieutenant Hobson started aft to watch the letting 
go of the stern anchor. It was a very important 
operation now. 

As he passed along the gangway he found the 
men gathered together in the place where they had 
agreed to meet, near the life-boat. Montague was 
with them. The stern anchor, then, had been let go 



3o6 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

already. As a matter of fact, it had been shot free ; 
the lashings had been cut by the fire from the Span- 
ish guns and it had fallen into the water without the 
aid of Montague. 

Lieutenant Hobson looked over the bulwarks. 
The air was whizzing full of steel, but he looked 
over the bulwarks. Of course, whether he looked 
over the bulwarks or hid behind them made little 
difference to his safety. Any one of those steel 
missiles that had started for him would not be turned 
aside by the frail upper works of an iron collier. 
But there is a good deal of the ostrich in all of us. 
If we get where we cannot see actual danger, we 
can more easily convince ourselves that it does not 
exist. There is some comfort behind a bulwark, 
after all. 

But Hobson looked over the bulwark. He was 
interested beyond everything in the question whether 
the chains would hold or not. The Merrimac was 
lying just in front of the Estrella battery, apparently 
motionless, and about two-thirds athwart the chan- 
nel. The quiet young man took a bearing of the 
bow on the shore. For an instant the vessel seemed 
to hold still, but in the next it could be seen to be 
moving. 

There was nothing to be done ; they could only 
wait. The fire from the batteries, increased now by 
the fire from the Spanish vessels up the harbor, 
made every spot unsafe. They lay on the deck, be- 
hind the bulwarks, trying not to be seen. If they 



"VALIENTE" 307 



should be seen, they would draw the fire of half a 
dozen guns, and their slim chance to escape with 
their lives would be swept away. 

Slowly the vessel swung out into the channel and 
swept on with the tide. As she drifted, there was a 
terrific thump from beneath ; she lifted and lurched. 
A mine had been sprung. 

" Lads, they are helping us I " cried the quiet 
young man, seeing hope again. 

The vessel was gradually settling in the water. 
Shots were flying back and forth across her deck ; 
the continuous crash of the firing guns was sprinkled 
with the clink of steel on steel as the projectiles 
found their mark. The men lay in a group behind 
the starboard bulwark, wondering when one of those 
projectiles would plough its way through them. 

The Merrimac seemed to be stopping in her slow 
drifting. Lieutenant Hobson, taking bearings, dis- 
covered that her stern was aground on Estrella. If 
she hung there long enough, the thing they had 
come to do would be accomplished, in spite of every- 
thing. 

They settled down to plan for the time when the 
vessel should have sunk. Useless to try to get over 
the side. If they once showed themselves they 
would draw all the fire of all the Spanish guns, and 
the end would come soon. 

Lieutenant Hobson issued an order that no man 
should move until he had received further orders. 
"We will wait here, lads, until the moon sets," he 



3o8 BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

said. " When it is dark we will go down tiie after- 
hatch, to the coal, where her stern will be out of 
water. Some of us will come up and get the rifles 
and cartridges out of the boat. We will remain in- 
side all day, and to-night at ebb-tide try to make 
our way to the squadron. If the enemy comes on 
board, we will remain quiet until he finds us, and 
will repel him. If he then turns his artillery on the 
place where we are, we will swim out to points farther 
forward." 

Those were the plans made when it seemed that 
the Merrimac would sink with her stern fast on 
Estrella point. 

" Remain where you are, lads ; I am going to take 
a turn to reconnoiter," Hobson added, when the 
plans were understood. What he wanted to do was 
to go forward and hoist the American flag, so that 
it might be floating over the Merrimac when it 
plunged under the waters of Santiago harbor. 

Charette interposed. " Please do not do so, sir," 
he said. " If you go they will see you and see us 
all." Charette was not thinking about himself; he 
was thinking about the quiet young man who had 
brought them to this, and he knew the only way to 
induce him not to expose himself was to put the 
plea on the grounds of the safety of the men. Some- 
times real heroism is hidden behind words like that. 

Hobson abandoned his sentiment about raising 
the flag, and lay down on the deck with the rest of 
the men, to wait. The firing of the enemy was ap- 



•'VALIENTE" 309 



palling. Guns of all caliber and kinds were potting 
at them at the highest speed attainable. Two regi- 
ments of infantry were on the shores of the bottle's 
neck, with magazine rifles. The din was incessant, 
and the rattle of missiles against the iron sides of 
the stranded and sinking collier was like the rat-ta- 
tat of a red-headed woodpecker on a tin cupola. 
The deck of the vessel shook and trembled under 
the blows of exploding shells. Great wonder that 
the little group of men, lying face down in the 
shadow of the bulwarks in the starboard gangway, 
were not blown and torn to pieces. It was hard to 
lie like that, waiting, but they did not offer to move, 
any of them. Strange sight ! Seven men in their 
underclothes with life belts and revolvers strapped 
about them, lying on the deck of a sinking ship 
under the sinking moon, with the hills about pop- 
ping death at them. 

Lieutenant Hobson, thrusting his head through a 
chock in the bulwarks, perceived that the vessel was 
moving again ; that it no longer hung on Estrella 
point. The force of the tide had swept it into the 
channel, and was straightening it out. It was al- 
ready low in the water, but it was sinking so slowly 
that there was no chance of bringing it to the bottom 
in time to block the channel. Their work, their 
worry, their risk, had been for nothing. 

Slowly the Merrimac drifted up and up the channel 
between the blasting fire from both sides and in 
front. The moments were intense ; it was a race 



3IO BRAVE DEEDS OF AMERICAN SAILORS 

between the tide that was sweeping the ship inward, 
and the water that was creeping up in her hold. At 
last she came to a stop in a bight behind Smith's 
Cay, an island on the western edge of the botde's 
neck. She lurched ; she jerked ; she bowed her 
head, and plunged beneath the water. The stern 
rose and heeled heavily ; then righted itself and went 
under. 

A great rush of water came up the gangway, 
sweeping up the seven men. There was a spout- 
ing, leaping, foaming, roaring tumult in the water. 
It was full of floating debris ; spars, barrels, planks. 
They charged end on against the men struggling in 
the whirlpool. The men were tossed about in the 
vortex. The life-preservers kept them afloat ; for a 
time, until the whirl settled, they were helpless 
against it. 

They looked for the life-boat. It had been 
wrenched away in the sinking of the ship and was 
floating off somewhere beyond sight. The cata- 
maran was the largest piece of floating wreckage. 
It had been made fast to the deck with a rope, which 
still held. It more than held ; it dragged one edge 
of the catamaran slightly downward, so that the 
other edge was lifted above the water. The men 
gathered under this lifted edge, clinging with their 
fingers to the float. 

The firing had ceased as soon as the Merrimac 
had begun to go down. In a short space, lights 
began to appear on the surface of the water, and 



"VALIENTE" 311 



boats came out to the scene of the wreck to pick up 
survivors. The Spaniards thought they had sunk a 
war-ship that had tried to steal in. 

The Americans clung close beneath the shadow of 
the catamaran. They were afraid that if they were 
seen there they might be shot. No purpose now in 
being shot. Perhaps, in the morning, they would 
find a way to escape. In any event, they could sur- 
render, and make sure of their lives. 

It was a bitter hardship, to cling to that slippery, 
floating thing until daybreak. The men had been 
through much. But they clung, and in the morning 
they were found there by a launch in which was Ad- 
miral Cervera himself. How they were locked up as 
prisoners in the Morro during a bombardment by 
the American squadron ; how they were afterward 
held as prisoners in the town of Santiago until the 
Americans occupied it, and how they were received 
at last as heroes in the fleet and by their country, is 
another story. 

But what Cervera said, under his breath, when he 
learned what they had done, is a part of this story. 

He said : " Valiente ! " 

Which, you will see at once, is just like our word 
valiant ; but in Spanish it means much more. And 
it needs to mean much more to describe what those 
men did in Santiago harbor on that morning in 
June, 1898. 



SEP 28 1912 




t^'^rl 



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W!V' :.-.-''':^mm 



K^ Of °^.'r.-« 




